About us

Overview

The Down Syndrome Association of Botswana (DSAB) was formed in 1999 but launched in the year 2000.The association was started by five parents of individuals with down syndrome. These parents started it after a medical doctor advised them that forming the association will be a good initiative, it serves as a safe space for them, a place to get to know each other, share their experiences and challenges, encourage each other, be a support group.

This organization was formed to support the parents, teachers and careers of people living with the condition. It offers a platform where they learn from each other, support one another and fight for inclusion of our children in all aspects of life such as education, workplace, health facilities, social activities, church and sports. By the year 2000 the five founding parents had found other like parents in Gaborone and surrounding areas, then DSAB was launched.

Our Aim

The association strives to facilitate throughout Botswana working in both towns and rural areas. It sees the need to attain up to date data and records of those in our communities in order to inform us of the needs we must address.
In so doing we aim to:

• Help those with Down Syndrome to help themselves to recognize their right to be heard and taken seriously
• To assist parents, develop their child to their full potential
• To fight ignorance and stigma in the community
• To stimulate and maintain partnerships and communication between professionals and parents.
• To develop and distribute high quality information on Down Syndrome in Botswana.
• To reach all new parents of Down syndrome within the first few weeks after birth and offer information and support.

In medical

• To familiarize all midwives and doctors in clinics and hospitals with the aims of our association
• To promote early diagnosis
• To inform the medical and para medical practitioners of the latest developments
• To advocate for the best possible health care
• To distribute a medical check list for people with Down syndrome
• To develop establish partnerships with experts within the medical work to assist whenever needed.

Our Challenges

Our biggest challenge is raising awareness especially across the country. We are constrained due to the small financial muscle, we have. Our wish is to create a database of individuals with Down Syndrome in Botswana such that every single person with Down Syndrome in our country should be a member of the association. The database will help us to help them better together with empowering their caregivers in terms of taking care of them, providing mental health support (counselling, motivating). We want our Down Syndrome community to feel loved and cared for through the association.

• Help those with Down Syndrome to help themselves to recognize their right to be heard and taken seriously
• To assist parents, develop their child to their full potential
• To fight ignorance and stigma in the community
• To stimulate and maintain partnerships and communication between professionals and parents.
• To develop and distribute high quality information on Down Syndrome in Botswana.
• To reach all new parents of Down syndrome within the first few weeks after birth and offer information and support.

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We face different challenges as Down Syndrome (DS) community, one of them being that once children complete school, there are no resources to take them to, no workplaces want to employ them, even vocational centers that enroll them once they finish formal education, they are very limited in number to enroll all of them, and lack resources.

We are currently advocating for their inclusion in the workplace. Most of them are sitting at home not doing anything, we would like to have a community centre for people with Down Syndrome, a place where they can acquire skills, enhance their talents to a level where they can be able to sustain themselves through employment and earn a living for themselves. Our goal is to see individuals with DS living a typical life like any member of our society without their disability being a hindrance.

Our History

WHAT WE HAVE BEEN DOING?

We have been doing outreach and workshop programs for people with Down Syndrome and their caretakers. This has proven to be very much needed. Outreach programs have helped us reach out to a lot of new mothers who needed our help to accept the conditions of their newborn babies. Being able to reach out to new mothers made it possible to offer them support, guidance on how to handle new babies and the health complications they face especially in the early days of their lives. We have had meet and greet sessions where caretakers came together just to catch up and share experiences, talk about their troubles and challenges. We have yearly commemorations of important dates in our World Down Syndrome Network calendar. On the 21 of March every year we celebrate World Down Syndrome Day and 21 October we celebrate Jeans Day (Jeans for Genes) which to mark the uniqueness of Down Syndrome community and their extra chromosome.

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Every year we celebrate Christmas with Christmas parties across the country, the past 2 years have been difficult financially, but we did manage to get sponsors to help us come up gift hampers that varied according to age appropriate for our Down Syndrome children and we distributed them to our people across the country.