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The lives of five young adults with learning disabilities - Hilly, Sam, Megan, Lewis and Lucy - have become the feature of a fly on the wall programme, filmed for the internet at www.the-specials.com.
The group have all been friends from an early age and now share a house together in Brighton, in the UK. The house was established and set up by Hilly's parents - Carol and Dafydd Williams. They knew that Hilly wanted to live in Brighton and share a house with her friends but when they looked in to the availability of adult services in the area, they discovered that there was nothing like this around.
They wanted to ensure that their daughter had the freeedom to run her own life, in the company of her own set of close friends and so set up the organisation, Small Opportunities, to provide this for her. Since 2007, the group - all of whom have Down syndrome, except Lewis who has William's syndrome - have been housemates while attending college.
There are nine regular support workers who, in rotation, provide 24 hour care and support to the housemates, helping them with matters such as money management, travelling around town or cooking a meal - however they are encouraged to learn to do these things for themselves.
All the staff have been carefully chosen by both Carol, Dafydd and the housemates, Together they looked for people they liked and could have some fun with and now their happy-go-lucky lifestyles have been captured on camera for the internet, from where they invite people in to share their world.
This window on their world shows them getting up to much the same set of activiites as you would expect their non-learning disabled peers to be experiencing - dancing, pubs, shopping, relationships - and the episodes keenly reflect how well they interact and how the set-up allows them be independent and direct their own decisions and futures.
Next episode is 5th October so be sure to log in! www.the-specials.com
Also this week, in an example of life mirroring art, Spanish actor with Down syndrome, Pablo Pineda, won the Concha Plata, the best actor prize at the 57th San Sebastian film festival last weekend for his portrayal of a man living with this disability.
In the movie, "Yo, Tambien" ("Me Too"), Pineda plays a 34 year old person with Down syndrome who achieves a university degree and then falls in love with a colleague at work.
The character's story mirrors Pineda's own life as he has a university degree in special education.
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