To celebrate World Down Syndrome Day (3/21) CoorDown launches its global awareness campaign “Just The Two of Us,” to promote the right of people with Down Syndrome to experience romantic relationships and receive correct and accessible information to enjoy a full and healthy carnal freedom.
Through a crescendo of scenes bordering on the absurd, the campaign video makes use of hyperbole to show how families, especially when it comes to romantic relationships, can become a cumbersome presence in the lives of people with intellectual disabilities. Amid smiles and emotions that are too openly “shared,” the message of the starring couple leaves no doubt: “Love needs space.” It is a difficult balance for parents and caregivers to find, balancing protectiveness with being supportive and wanting their loved ones to live life to the fullest. The video unfolds to the tune of a cover of the song “Just The Two Of Us” by Grover Washington Jr. and Bill Withers, which serves as soundtrack to the story and as final message.
Everyone has a right to develop romantic relationships and to fully enjoy their sexuality, yet for people with intellectual disabilities this is often still a taboo. Many stereotypes surrounding disability have been shattered in the last decades, but there is one theme that still causes embarrassment and resistance: sexuality. It is a cultural change that must be tackled and that involves families, caregivers and support workers first and next institutions and society at large. People with Down syndrome are often seen as “eternal children”, and as such are protected or kept away from anything that has to do with adulthood, including sexuality. But people with Down syndrome have the same needs as anybody else and have the same right to live an independent love and sexual life and to receive clear and accessible information.
Relationships and sex education may enable people with intellectual disabilities to enjoy a healthy and fulfilling emotional life and is key to help them understand their rights, learn about their bodies and about the concepts of “consent” and “safe sex”, and protect them from potential abuse.
In support of the campaign, a website was created to provide information and resources on the topic of sexuality of people with Down syndrome and intellectual disabilities.
The “Just the Two of Us” campaign–available on CoorDown’s YouTube channel–marks CoorDown’s tenth collaboration with Luca Lorenzini and Luca Pannese, at present creative and executive directors of the New York-based agency SMALL. The film “Just The Two of Us”, directed by Martin Romanella and Augusto Gimenez Zapiola, with cinematography by Marcello Dapporto, was produced by Indiana Production.
The stars of the campaign are Kenya Koene and Liam de Waele, two young Dutch adults age 20 and 21, who met on the set of a web series, and they are also a real-life couple.
Control is sponsor of the initiative and will support the launch of this campaign with an information activity dedicated to this subject on its social channels, through the narration of young women and men with Down syndrome, who tell their stories and experiences as a couple.
This year’s global campaign was again supported by the Down’s Syndrome Association (UK) and Down Syndrome Australia, partners of CoorDown since 2015, with the patronage of DSi–Down Syndrome International and Fondazione Cariplo.
