Good afternoon everyone! Welcome back to the D2020 World Project website and thank you very much for following this adventure with me. I am sorry about the delay but this week has been intense and magical for many reasons… In this first post about my adventures around the world I would like to tell you about my afternoon with Down Sendromu Dernegi ( @downturkiye ), the Turkish Down syndrome association, where I got the chance to meet 4 Turkish Down syndrome young adults and their two helpers.
On Thursday 9th of January 2020 I arrived to Istanbul on a Turkish Airlines flight from Madrid. I actually decided to start the D2020 World Project tour in this specific city because of what it represents. Istanbul is the gateway to Asia and has always been a metropolitan city that has been influenced by both sides of the Bosphorus. Although the historical district of Istanbul - Fatih-, which used to be Constantinople during the Roman Empire, is built on the European side, the city now expands to the Asian continent where you can now find many modern tall buildings just after crossing the famous bridge that connects the two continents.
The Bosphorus bridge was opened in 1973 and I thought that by starting this crazy D2020 adventure by crossing this bridge it would symbolise many ideas that I would like to share with the world. The first one being the mix of cultures. I strongly believe that we can all learn from different cultures and none of them is better than the other. Each one is different and Istanbul is the perfect example of what you can build by mixing up traditions, knowledge, and most importantly ideas!
The Bosphorus bridge also represents connection and by creating the D2020 World Project I wanted to connect you all to the world, but also, to people with Down syndrome in every single country I am going to visit! If one wants to raise awareness about something one has to learn to connect to the people around them to be able to convey their ideas and thoughts.
This is where the D2020 World Project comes in! Connecting different people to Down Syndrome around the world to make them stand out and feel safe about themselves.
And last but not least, this bridge is all about standing out. This 165m high bridge, higher than the famous Sydney bridge, is hard to miss when you are in Istanbul. Illuminated by red and pink lights at night, this bridge stands out just like the people with Down syndrome that you cross in your every day life, either going to work or going to school...
What actually surprises me is that almost everyone knows what a person with Down syndrome looks like. Last December I went to present my project to various classes in two different schools in Madrid and surprisingly more than half of the students (between 10 and 13 years old) could actually tell what a person with Down syndrome looks like. They could actually associate them to the words “Down syndrome” and differentiate them from autistic people or people with other mental handicaps. Therefore, in some way we could say that people with Down syndrome already do stand out. Think about it, when we imagine a group of disabled people we automatically imagine the person in a wheelchair, the blind, the deaf and someone with Down Syndrome. This is actually something that was commented by the director of Down España (Spain) and he also commented that it had a negative effect on Down syndrome. On one side it helps for people to know what Down syndrome is, how to recognise someone with Down syndrome, but this situation has also put them in a situation where people don’t actually focus on what makes them just like us and a majority just focus on the handicap.
Therefore, this is where the D2020 World Project comes in! Connecting different people to Down Syndrome around the world to make them stand out and feel safe about themselves. Just imagine what it is like for us to feel safe about ourselves… Now imagine what it must be like for someone who is stared at constantly just because he or she was born with an extra chromosome.
Anyway, back to Turkey! What an incredible four days and among the many different things I learned in Istanbul one specific thing stands out: I have to check my Spam more often! For weeks and weeks I had tried to contact the Turkish foundation because I thought that Istanbul was a key city because of all the different reasons I mentioned previously. I had also asked for help from Down Syndrome International, based in England, who copied me in a mail to Gün, their contact in Istanbul, so that maybe together we could get an answer. At that time I was thinking “what type of foundation would actually answer an email from someone this young who is telling them that he is going to go around the world to help raise awareness on Down syndrome”. It is unfortunately not very common and I will forever be grateful for their trust. Honestly, if I had received a mail like that I wouldn’t have believed any of it. A world tour in 90 days only and wanting to meet Down syndrome foundations in each country? Estas loco?
When I think about it I actually would love to know what the people in New Zealand, the first country to confirm their participation in the D2020 World Project, actually thought when they read my email. I had no website and barely had content on social media. I guess that sometimes you just have to give a chance to crazy ideas…
When I boarded the plane to Istanbul on the 9th I was a bit disappointed to not have obtained any meeting with Down Sendromu Dernegi. On the day before heading to Delhi, 12th of January, completely nervous about going to a huge country like India, I actually had a look at my Spam. This is something I actually do once every six months, and guess what… by surprise… there it was! The golden ticket to the first foundation of the world tour! This was like Charlie going to visit Willy Wonka! When I read the email my eyes were wide open and the only thing that came out of my mouth was “Oops!”.
Oh no ! Why hadn’t I thought about it before? Always check your spam! There it was waiting for me since December 18th and I had no idea. I directly answered asking if it would be possible to meet them the next day clearly knowing that it would be impossible on such short notice but why not give it a try! I felt awful as this was my first big mistake and I could not leave it as it was. I had to do something. This project means so much to me that I was really hoping for a positive answer from them! We are talking 7 or 8 PM at night, so in no way they were going to organise something for mister nobody for the next day. I guess I was wrong.
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