Invitation to abundance in 2025
If you are an adult with Down syndrome who is interested in learning how to build your own version of a great life while improving your community, we are looking for you. Because Ireland needs future community leaders with Down syndrome!
The first cycle of CAPCA ran from April to October 2024, and now we are proud to present the next evolution of CAPCA training in Autumn 2025. The course is free for participants and is supported by Rethink Ireland.
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.
What are we going to do?
From CAPCA to Abundance has five parts:
- A seven week Online Course for you and your team to design your own community action, service or product. Our team will support you with weekly meetups online on Thursdays from 6.00 - 7.30pm. If you miss a Thursday session, we’ll send you the recording for viewing before the next session.
- Two days of in-person Co-creation in Galway in late October. (If you can’t make it, you can create it in your home.)
- Two months of work experience running our own Craft Shop in November and December 2025 selling your and other CAPCA participant's products and services. We will partner with other volunteers from Galway region companies and community groups.
- Abundance training and consultation starting December 2025 will help you to create your own business plan. The Abundance training will give your business idea firm roots to grow. We will provide a small budget for you to create promotional materials and even prototypes of your idea in practice.
- CAPCA to Abundance will end in a special workshop event in Galway on World Down Syndrome Day 21.3.2026, where your business ideas and prototypes will be presented to a wide variety of stakeholders, decision makers, investors and entrepreneurs.
Below we’ll tell you a bit more about each part.
Online Course
You, your partners, supporters and other team members will get access to CAPCA training platform where you will learn a new theme. The online course will include home work that helps you to learn about citizenship, community development and business skills. You can do your studying at your own pace and we will provide online support using WhatsApp if you have any questions.
Each week we will come together online on Thursdays at 6pm - 7.30pm to discuss and share what we learnt together. The modules demonstrate what real citizenship looks like, or can look like. Some of these ideas are more than 200 years old, others come from a book just published last month. After the introductory session, the themes for each week will be Freedom, Life, Purpose, Home, Support and Money, six Keys to Citizenship, held together by Love, the keyring. The model is based on the work of Dr Simon Duffy, the founder of Citizen Network, a global network for inclusion, citizenship and community development. The final week will be a review of the journey we’ve travelled, and how it will be used at Galway Christmas market from November to January through December.
In these meetings you will have an opportunity to say on the topics we discuss. We’ll review some of the main things from the week’s theme in a free-flowing, participant-led process. This way, you will learn from the leadership team, and practice leadership skills. Fionn and Jonathan will be the main facilitators of the course. Besides Fionn, each module will have a guest presenter with Down syndrome who will design and deliver parts of the course, sharing personal experiences that relate to the evening’s theme.
Because the course work online will be a combination of personal online studies and discussions between participants, it’s important that all applicants intend to participate in all or nearly all sessions. All course participants will receive a certificate of completion and a copy of a new book Everyday Citizenship, a key source for our curriculum, whether you attend in person or not.
Factory
We will gather together in Galway to our own Factory, where we will co-design your ideas into sellable products and services. During the factory weeks we will create the items which will be sold at the Galway Christmas market, where we have our own market space. The Factory weeks will happen in early November.
Our Factory will also be an open space for Galway citizens to know us better, see what we are doing and join us supporting our actions. We will arrange two makers’ evenings, where we pitch our products and services with Galway community members, stakeholders and other guests.During the Factory weeks we also prepare ourselves for the biggest community action in CAPCA history - the Christmas market in Galway..
Craft shop in galway
Everyone who attends the course will be expected to join the Galway Christmas market two times a week for four hours with your support person from 24.11.2025 - 11.1.2026. You will be supported by Fionn, Jonathan and other people volunteering during our employment and entrepreneurial period.
At the Christmas market we will sell our products and promote our community and business ideas as we follow For those who cannot join the Galway Christmas market, we will provide you with instructions and guidance to participate at home.
Abundance training
What is Abundance? Join us to find out. The Abundance training begins in November and includes both online learning by yourself and your team plus meetings once a week to reflect and provide feedback. The beginning months we will focus on information and skills related to business and develop the blueprint of shared business plans. We will connect you with other members in the training to create teams that work together and create a shared plan.
Your pilot project will be mentored with guidance and ideas to improve our business ideas. After January we will test out your business ideas in real life and create the first prototypes. We will also create a small documentary of your business story to make it more marketable for your customers, stakeholders and investors. These prototype videos will be presented by you at the Accelerator Event.
The accelerator event
On either World Down Syndrome Day 21.3.2026 or the day before will be the Accelerator Event, where we demonstrate our learning and what we created during our period together. Participants with Down syndrome share their visions for change in their community and how to make it a reality. We say ‘attempt’ because there’s no guarantee of success in life, especially where your aims are ambitious. But there’s no harm in trying your best and failing, either. In fact, sometimes we learn more when things don’t go to plan.
The event will be a co-creation workshop where you can pitch your team’s business idea and get feedback, investments and new opportunities for your and our collective business ideas. We as organisers will make ourselves available to answer questions and offer help as we can.
You are warmly welcome to join us on this first-of-its kind journey. We feel that Ireland and the world is ready for change, and it can only happen if people get informed, get inspired, and take action for the good.
Please do let us hear from you, and if you are ready to register for this project, just click the button below to apply!
If you have any questions, please reach out to us at
