Positive publicity just before Christmas

Here in the UK, Next have just run a competition on Facebook for child models.  Parents were able to enter their children online and voting also took place online with anyone being able to vote once for any child, even if they were not a Facebook user.

 The competition ran for about a month and about half way through I became aware of two children with Down's Syndrome who were entered, I thought this was a great chance for some positive publicity for our kids, so I decided to make as many of my friends in the Down's Syndrome world aware so that they could vote for them if they wanted.

About a week later I was told about another entrant with DS and then another, so that by the closing days I was aware of 9 entrants who had Down's Syndrome.  Sadly it was a bit too late to rally enough support for all of them, but there were lots of wonderful comments about them all on my Facebook page and I'm sure you'll agree they are all gorgeous!

The top 100 finalists at the close of the competition are all being invited to a photo shoot at Woburn Abbey on December 21st and two them have Down's Syndrome and both have had heart surgery - isn't that a wonderfully positive message.  I'm really excited about this, especially as I am going to be lucky enough to go along to Woburn to meet them on the day.

Congratulations to both Hannah and Harvey.  I know that only 2 of the final 100 will be chosen to model for Next, but you did really well to be in that 100 and I hope you are going to have a wonderful day at Woburn.  I am going to do my bit by trying to get some press coverage for the final so hopefully even more people will get to see your beautiful smiling faces.