What is abundance?
Fionnathan are building skills and removing barriers to the participation of people with Down Syndrome in their communities. We do this through education, media, arts and cultural endeavours.
Creative Approaches to Practical Community Advocacy (CAPCA) is primarily for young adults (19-24) with Down syndrome, and we are open to older participants. Other disabling conditions are frequently associated with Down syndrome in individuals (often lumped together through diagnostic overshadow). Although not yet tested, we’ve run two other projects that will form the basis of this project.
Creative Approaches to Practical Advocacy, a course we designed and delivered for Disability Federation of Ireland. Three words each participants chose for the course evaluation included: informative, creative, rights, good, interesting, understand, easy to follow, “interstanding”, very motivating, chatting, learning, fun (the last word chosen by 60% of participants). Outputs were six training days and a graduation ceremony in the community.
The National Down Syndrome Policy Group Advisory Group has Fionn as its current Chairperson. Its 40 members with Down syndrome universally voice desire for continuance at quarterly reviews thrice. Outcomes include presentations at Parliament; a Human Library event with 16 members leading conversations; Roundtables with Cabinet Ministers; a party at the US Ambassador’s Residence celebrating the law’s passage; and an information event attended by 107 Members of Parliament.
We are led by people with living experience of Down Syndrome. In our eyes, this should be a qualifying factor for funding targeting DS Advocacy projects, in spirit of both the UNCRPD and the World Down Syndrome Day slogan, ‘with us, not for us’.
We are embedded in this community, with personal, healthy relationships with hundreds of people in the Down syndrome families. We have worked also with dozens of service support groups, advocacy groups, and one multiple government committees.
We have walked this journey. We’ve challenged schools (in Board Meetings) and Government (in court) to assure appropriate, inclusive education; we’ve battled (and befriended individuals) at city hall, enlisting our TDs assistance, over supported independent housing. We broke ground negotiating a Personal Budget. And we’ve worked alongside and within many groups, seeking change.
We have lectured to (and listened to) thousands of Social Care students and professionals across Ireland, in university classrooms, at conferences, and in work settings.
We know how to deliver immersive, personalised, fun and practical training, and we have a strong track record to show it.
Abundance have three goals:
1. to inspire and motivate a sizable group of adults with Down across Ireland. To us, this is low hanging fruit. The popularity of our social media campaigns (a two-person operation, with nearly 4 million cumulative engagements) suggests strongly that families and communities are ready to support the rights of this population, and to correct historical wrongs of exclusion and silencing.
2. to give our participants the knowhow, tools and peer support to shift policy wherever injustice is embedded in systems procedures, including areas of Education, Employment, Health and Social Care, Housing and Political Participation.
3. to bring citizens with Down syndrome into the consciousness of policy makers, at local and national levels. The DSAct 2020 in the UK has resulted in a demonstrably greater awareness in the general population and in community leaders of the rights of people with Down syndrome to be included in all areas of society. We plan to help bring about a similar increase in profile here.
We involve stakeholders at all stages of development, delivery and evaluation
Overall leadership of Abundance is by a social entrepreneur with Down syndrome, assisted by his partner of long standing. Design and delivery of the online meetings will be carried out by a team of a further six experienced facilitators with Down syndrome (and supporters, in most cases). Our keynote speaker at the national event will also live with this condition.
To evaluate the development of Abundance, we plan to engage an expert inclusive co-research team from the Inclusive Research Network of Ireland (IRN). In the unlikely case that they are unable to offer their support, we’ll secure the services of a similar collective outside of Ireland. As Chair of the International Inclusive Research Group for the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Fionn advised the NDA on their new Collaborative Research guidelines.
Project lead: Fionn (has DS). The IRN has disability leadership. Our six facilitators have Down syndrome. Accounting for this project will be commissioned from a disability owned business.
Ireland’s first person with Down syndrome running an HSE Self-Directed Support pilot, Fionn has lectured at 30 universities, served on the Personal Budgets Task Force, and given Oireachtas testimony.
A great believer in Community, Fionn lives independently (with support), redistributing surplus food from supermarkets to neighbourhood families. He produced Culture Cafés: with immigrant groups from various countries of origin celebrating together: stories, music and food.
IIDL Emerging Leader, Inclusive Research Network Global Liaison, and Chair of the Inclusive Research Group of IASSIDD, he advises the NDA on accessible communications and collaborative research.
Past member of Down Syndrome Ireland’s Advisory Council, he is the only teacher appointed to DSI’s online instruction panel with Down syndrome. He visited over 100 primary schools, teaching ecology for the Heritage Council.
He’s worked for commercial training portal Open Future Learning, as online instructor and in campaigns challenging preconceptions.
He co-designed CDLP’s Good Lives, Trinity’s Digi-ID, and Fed Vol’s VoiceBox projects. He’ll soon appear in Decision Support Service TV ads.
Headhunted onto the National Down Syndrome Policy Group, he helped pass the Down Syndrome Act. He chairs the Advisory Group of UK adults with Down syndrome, and will soon job-shadow with the Education Minister.
Deliver regional, in-person workshop days, including artistic engagement with themes developed through previous collaborative work. Prepare and practice each participant’s contribution to the Human Library element of the National Event.
Who are we?
For anyone unfamiliar with us, hello!
We are Fionn and Jonathan Angus, co-founders of Fionnathan Productions.
Fionn says, “We started this company ten years ago, and a lot of that time has been helping me, a young man with Down syndrome, create a great life for myself.” Jonathan adds, “We are more than ready to share all we’ve learned in the process.”
Fionn’s accomplishments include:
- Managing his bespoke disability support service (first in Ireland!)
- Spokesman for Decision Support Service, meeting with Leo Varadkar
- Successfully lobbying 107 UK MPs for the Down Syndrome Act 2022
- Trustee to Down Syndrome Ireland and three other NGOs
- Teaching nature conservation to children in 90 schools
- Presenting at 30 universities, the Oireachtas, UK Parliament, and the UN
- 700 interviews for his Happiness Project (over 4 million Youtube watches)
- Interviewed by RTE, Irish Times, BBC, Sky News, and many podcasts
- Doing stand-up comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
- Performing traditional fiddle music in the Amazon Rainforest
Why do we do this?
It’s often noted that people with Down syndrome are happy, generally speaking. That can be a great strength. But it’s also true to say many of them don’t have the degree of choice in their lives that other adults take for granted. And they often lack ways to show all they can do.
People with Down syndrome are an undervalued resource to build a better society. Because their skill set is different from everyone else, that difference is an essential element the community needs for its health. Building on your strengths, ideas and resources we can find creative ways to support your actions in community by building entrepreneurial opportunities as a collective. From community actions as a collective to your individual and group ideas, we will support you in creating wealth for yourself and for our society.
Fionn has famously said that the greatest obstacle to his success has been the low expectations of people he encounters, perhaps a factor limiting the ambitions of others with Down syndrome. There’s a lot of evidence of this. We’ll be focusing on the positive: what you can do to create a great life for yourself while making the world better. The From CAPCA to Abundance project will be facilitated and supported by Fionn Angus Crombie and Jonathan Angus from Fionnathan Productions from Galway Ireland, by development expert Markus Vähälä from Finland.
