We’re very grateful to Kristin, Gwilym and all their family and friends for their amazing fundraising efforts around Awareness Week and World Down Syndrome Day this year.
Kristin has kindly answered a few questions for us to learn more.
Tell us about your family life and story in general.
Mum and Dad are John & Kristin. We have four children: Klara (9) is the eldest, Gwilym (6) and twins Flora & Frieda (4).
John is Welsh whilst Kristin is German. The children are brought up bilingual.
Gwilym loves his Oma & Opa (grandparents) but sadly they’re in Germany and we haven’t seen them for 2 years. John’s parents sadly have been dead for a very long time. We also have 2 sausage dogs Buzz & Waldi.
Tell us about Gwilym
Gwilym is a busy boy. He’s a member of the RDA Vale of Glamorgan and goes horse riding ones a week. He also is a member in the Vale Gymnastics club and enjoys a session every week. He recently joined a ballet school also and will partake on stage as an elephant in Aladdin. Gwilym is also lucky enough to have a little input of piano every week thanks to Klara’s piano teacher. All this input helps Gwilym to develop physically but also stimulates his mind and senses.
He goes to mainstream school down the road along with his siblings. He loves taking his batbike to school (type of balance bike). Gwilym likes to be independent and treated just like everyone else. He really doesn’t like it when someone tries to interfere and help. He also doesn’t like to be told off 😀 Gwilym loves his breakfast roll with salami. I think this is the German in him.
Tell us about Gwilym’s sisters and how they all get along.
Gwilli’s sisters keep him on his toes. They argue often but at the same time love spending time together. I guess they have a typical sibling relationship with highs and lows.
Tell us about Gwilym’s achievements so far and your proud moments
Gwilym is signed to Zebedee management and has modeled in the past for ELC. His biggest achievement however is opening the eyes of others to a deeper meaning of life.
Tell us about any challenges Gwilym may have faced
Gwilym’s biggest challenge is speech. We’ve done several fundraising events in the past to enable us to pay for private speech and language therapy. He also suffers from glue ear and had two grommet ops to date. Sadly NHS has been a let down for both.
Tell us about your hopes for the future
My biggest hope is that we stop concentrating on eradicating Down Syndrome and instead learn from it and finally give people with the condition the support they need and deserve! I want Gwilym to have a happy life without any prejudice.
Tell us about your fundraising challenges
The headteacher at my children’s school feels strongly about school uniform. We asked my sons Headteacher if he would support my fundraising. With help from Gwilym we designed a PE Tshirt that can now be worn as an official PE uniform. They also collected £188 in total. Amazing!
I did a skydive on the day before World Down Syndrome Day. It was insane but I felt I had to do it. Gwilym has to overcome hurdle after hurdle and he just gets on with it. So that was the type of attitude I had doing it.
Many thanks to Kristin for telling us more about Gwilym and their family.
Follow more of Gwilym’s adventures on his Facebook page.