2020 HAS BEEN QUITE THE YEAR SO FAR

Down Write Brilliant

2020 HAS BEEN QUITE THE YEAR SO FAR

By Andrew Oswin

This has been quite a year so far for me. My father and I attended the Waitaki Summer Music Camp Concert where my mother had been performing playing the flute, and I enjoyed it very much. The orchestra members all played and performed at their very best. I had attended this Summer Music Camp before when I had been a teenager. It is where I have made friends in many years. As you read in the last Chat 21, I also got to be the ‘Master of Ceremonies’ for the Special Olympics Canterbury Awards, Dinner and Disco Night. I attended the Upper South Island Regional Council in Murchison earlier this year with my father who came as my mentor. This is part of my role as a Global Messenger. I got to meet, socialise and make new friends with other athletes who came from different parts of the upper South Island. We all learned how to connect, communicate, network, inform, be a good leader and role model to our athletes in our region and how Special Olympics New Zealand can do better to help us in the future. I am enjoying my voluntary work at the Harakeke Club where I go on Mondays. It is a day care centre for pensioners who suffer from Memory Loss, Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia. I help in the kitchen putting dishes in the dishwasher, dishes drying, setting tables for lunch, assisting in the activities and entertainment programmes when I sometimes get requested to play the piano. I have been volunteering for the Harakeke Club for 11 years. I enjoy my part-time job as a Regional Administrator for Parent to Parent Greater Canterbury where I do clerical duties. Some of the work involves checking updates, checking emails, entering information to update the Parent to Parent’s Database to send out

Andrew Oswin

journal magazines and email scanning using the photocopier. This is my fifth year working for Parent to Parent Greater Canterbury. I was working from home during Covid 19 on my work laptop which is provided for me by my work. World Down Syndrome Day had to be cancelled due to COVID-19 and I know that this had affected everyone in the Down syndrome community, and we are hoping to celebrate this at a later date. This deeply saddened the whole of our beloved country New Zealand which I care and love. We do need to take a moment to 'remember the people' who died from this pandemic disease and this has happened across our world. Andrew Oswin, STRIVE Editorial Committee and Down Syndrome International Member