La Fundació Catalana Síndrome de Down

With her first husband, my grandmother, Montserrat gave birth to a child with Down Syndrome. When he was born the doctors informed my grandmother of his condition and they advised her to put him in an orphanage. Appalled by the doctor's suggestion to give up her son, she named him Andy and loves him as much as her three other children. She knew it would be a struggle to raise a child with such a severe mental handicap and she decided to start to look for help. Quickly she realized that not many people in Catalunya were willing to help her child that they referred to as a "Mongul." She took her search to the United States where she met with doctors in Washington State who had been psycho analyzing behavioral of people with Down Syndrome. She brought her research back to Catalunya where her and her husband started the Foundation for Down Syndrome. This year, the foundation is celebrating 32 years and 20 years of a work program called Col•labora, which helps adults with down syndrome find work.

My grandmother is no longer the director of the foundation and her daughter, Katy Trias has taken over the position. In an interview with the journalist Antoni Bassas from the news company Ara, she discusses the success of the foundation and the work program over the past few decades. The main goal of the foundation is to make the people with down syndrome feel confident in themselves and their families to feel the same. When the families are not confident in their child or brother or sister's ability, the adult cannot learn to live independently and they have an even more severe handicap. The foundation begins teaching students with down syndrome at an early age because the sooner they begin to educate the families, the better the life will be for the child and as they grow.

One of the ways they help them be independent is by teaching them how to have a job and behave in the work place. They have a very successful newspaper called "Èxit 21" in catalan or "Success 21" in English. The people who work at the newspaper conduct interviews with politicians, athletes, musicians, or other famous Catalan figures. At first, the parents though that the foundation was writing the articles and putting a name of a person with Down Syndrome on the article. In order to prove they were not, they began to film the interviews. This showed the families how their sons and daughters were improving their life skills and confidence.

I think that it is admirable that my grandmother saw the mistreatment of her son as a universal issue that needed to be addressed. She chose to educate others on the issue so awareness could be spread and also to discover new tactics to help those with this handicap as they reached adulthood. I eat lunch with her son every Wednesday since I have been in Barcelona. I think that he is one of the most brilliant people I have ever met. He knows everything about FCB, the public transportation system in Barcelona and he knows how to speak Catalan and Spanish and even a little bit of English.

http://www.ara.cat/videos/entrevistes/Entrevista-dAntoni-Bassas-Katy-Trias_3_1713458644.html