mycause raises funds to assist Down Syndome Swimming Australia and Clarke Road School
mycause was honoured to assist a number of campaigns and raise awareness of how people with intellectual disabilities such as Down Syndrome are contributing to our society. The ambitions, success and contribution of the Australian Down Syndrome swim team, who are a fantastic example of what people can achieve, regardless of any disabilities they may have.
Down Syndrome Swimming Australia - Aussie Gold in Italy
Many people are unaware that Australia has an award-winning swim team with Down Syndrome, which has been doing Australia proud and gathering accolades since 2008. The team has been winning international championships every year and are determined to represent the country at the 2016 Trisome Games.
Down Syndrome Swimming Australia will be sending 22 of their absolute best swimmers to the 2016 Trisome Games, hosted in Italy. The travel costs aren’t cheap and despite their success in previous competitions, Down Syndrome Swimming Australia receives no government funding. People with Down Syndrome are also ineligible to compete in both the Olympics and the Paralympics and are caught in-between.
President of DSSA, Simon Cox, told The Courier Mail that the ultimate goal is to prove that people with Down Syndrome deserve to compete at the Paralympics.
“There’s a fair number of people with Down Syndrome but because it affects physical as well as intellectual, they can’t compete with the one intellectual category in the Paralympics.”
In the lead up to World Down Syndrome Day, mycause and DSSA united to promote their campaign, Aussie Gold in Italy. The campaign ran for five weeks, with the aim of raising enough money to pay for the airfares for athletes. Aussie Gold in Italy was promoted across all of the mycause social media accounts, with the frequency of the posts increasing in the lead up to March 21. The campaign was also covered in The Courier Mail and on Sky News, with a profile article printed in The Examiner.
After an extensive social and media campaign, the campaign was able to raise over $13,000 for the Down Syndrome swim team, with donations continuing to pour into the campaign as time passes.
A Bus for Our Special Kids
The Clarke Road School caters for students with a range of moderate to high disabilities. When their 24 year-old bus was on its last legs, the school turned to mycause. A campaign was created to raise funds for a new school bus, which would have to be tailored to suit the needs of different students.
The campaign was pitched out to local media and was covered by the Hornsby Advocate, along with being featured on the mycause social media accounts for the week.
The initial page target was $20,000 - after some very generous corporate and individual donations, this target was exceeded. Clarke Road School has raised over $22,000 to date, which will no doubt be of benefit to the school and its students in the future.
Anyone can crowdfund to compete in sports at a local, national or international level through mycause. Take a look at our current compete or represent causes!