30 days of human comms: day #43 a Down’s Syndrome campaign video

Often when I’m co-delivering video training I’ll tell a story about one of the first lessons I learned as a journalist.

“News is people,” I was told. “People connect to people.”

It was true today as it was then.

“Be human,” I tell people in organisations when I’m training them. “Humans connect to other humans.”

This crowdsourced video from Down’s Syndrome blogger Jamie McCallum could not be more human if it tried. It’s a lip synch car pool karaoke that cuts together footage of 50 mums and children with Down’s Syndrome singing to Christina Perri’s hit ‘A Thousand Years’.

The media law student in me assumes they got permission to use the track.

Take a look at the video:

It’s beautiful, isn’t it?

Looking on social media, the parents involved trailed the video and then shared it with their networks who then shared it on.

A still from our portion of the 50 Mums | 50 Kids | 1 Extra Chromosome video! I think I have the mischievous monkey of them all 😍 💙💛 #wouldntchangeathing #wdsd2018 pic.twitter.com/WLTuyVFt84

— Li Rogers (@MamatoSquish) March 14, 2018

And that’s how a campaign is run in 2018. Involve people. Ask people to share.

My own family’s Down Syndrome story

My God daughter Darcey Slee was diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome.

Darcey’s parents, my brother Paul and his wife Teresa, often say that Darcey is just like any other little girl. She doesn’t always do as she’s told. She can be exasperating, funny, tiring and charming just like any other girl.

See those Mums in the video? They’re just like any other Mum.

See those children? The ones clambering into the backseat when they should be signing to the song? They’re just like any other children.

And their mums think they’re great and so do their families.

And that’s the point of this video.

World Down’s Syndrome Day is March 21. Find out more here.

Thanks to Jude Habib for flagging this video up with me.