Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed

guardian.wemagazine@gmail.com

“Beau­ty be­gins the mo­ment you de­cide

to be your­self.”

~ Co­co Chanel

Moni­ka My­ers is an in­spi­ra­tion to all who in­ter­act with her or fol­low her jour­ney. At age 14, she was the FIRST run­way mod­el in Toron­to Kids Fash­ion Week with Down syn­drome and al­so rocked the stage at the pres­ti­gious New York Fash­ion Week.

She does not al­low Down Syn­drome (DS) to de­fine who she is. She sets her own rules and breaks all the stig­mas and bar­ri­ers as­so­ci­at­ed to DS. It is sim­ply just a part of her. She loves life, is con­fi­dent in who she is and tru­ly be­lieves EVERY woman is beau­ti­ful.

Moni­ka graced the shores of T&T, af­ter be­ing in­vit­ed by the Down Syn­drome Fam­i­ly Net­work (DSFN) for their com­mem­o­ra­tive week of events. She epit­o­mised the line ‘rocked the run­way’ in­spir­ing along oth­er mem­bers of DSFN who con­fi­dent­ly strut­ted the de­signs of our lo­cal fash­ion de­sign­ers; Charu Lochan Dass, Clau­dia Pe­gus, Ec­clife Elie, Rad­i­cal De­signs and The Cloth.

“When I’m on the run­way I feel alive, I love wear­ing beau­ti­ful clothes. I re­al­ly love it!”, Moni­ka en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly shared.

“I don’t feel dif­fer­ent: I think we are all beau­ti­ful and do­ing what we love to do,” she ex­plained with con­ta­gious ex­u­ber­ance. With­in her jour­ney she has al­so been in­spired by oth­er peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties.

“I don’t al­low Down syn­drome to be a lim­it!”

“The Fash­ion show was a fo­rum for our young peo­ple to ex­press them­selves and to par­tic­i­pate with top de­sign­ers and mod­els. To show that they can achieve any­thing once giv­en a chance. It was an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the pub­lic to learn about the po­ten­tial of per­sons with DOWN SYN­DROME and break through the stig­mas and myths sur­round­ing per­sons with in­tel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties,” said Lisa Ghany, Di­rec­tor of DSFN and cre­ator of ‘Fash­ion With Us’.

Mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions cre­at­ed

Moni­ka was ac­com­pa­nied by her en­tire fam­i­ly, Stephanie, John and William, who col­lec­tive­ly shared, “We have fall­en in love with the T&T peo­ple, their gen­uine warmth, the mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions and mem­o­ries are what we take back with us.”

While chat­ting with the WE Ed­i­tor, Stephanie chuck­led and added, “We will dream of this co­conut ice-cream we en­joyed, while feel­ing the cool breeze on the mag­i­cal beach­es of To­ba­go. This is tru­ly a Caribbean par­adise.”

Stephanie said sup­port­ing her daugh­ter on the path she has cho­sen is an easy de­ci­sion. The hope ex­pressed by the many par­ents they en­counter; the en­cour­ag­ing feed­back by fash­ion de­sign­ers, and the pos­i­tive cli­mate of great af­fec­tion by every com­mu­ni­ty they have trav­elled to; con­tin­ues to ad­vance these choic­es fur­ther.

“Hav­ing Moni­ka on the cat­walk not on­ly rep­re­sents peo­ple with DS but is mon­u­men­tal for all peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties. She is proof that we are all dif­fer­ent and all equal­ly beau­ti­ful in their own way. We should be con­fi­dent in who we are and proud to cel­e­brat­ing our in­di­vid­u­al­i­ties,” she said.

The evening was one of mon­u­men­tal cel­e­bra­tions that em­bed­ded in­to the DNA of all that at­tend­ed, that each per­son, de­spite any set­back or chal­lenge, is ca­pa­ble of ac­com­plish­ing any­thing.

The mes­sage was clear.

No lim­its, No bound­aries!

You can fol­low Moni­ka’s Jour­ney at

IG: @monikamy­ers08 | @iambrave­and­beau­ti­ful

www.monikamy­ersmod­el.com |

www.iambrave­and­beau­ti­ful.com

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Open­ing Speech De­liv­ered by Coryn

Coryn Anaya Clarke

“Hel­lo every­one. My name is Coryn Anaya Clarke and to­day I am here to join you in cel­e­brat­ing World Down Syn­drome Day.

I have a con­fes­sion; can I share it with you? I on­ly re­cent­ly learned what Down Syn­drome is. Please don’t judge me too harsh­ly, I’m on­ly sev­en years old, so there’s a lot of stuff I don’t know yet. I’m cu­ri­ous by na­ture though, so I am learn­ing new things every­day.

Now that I know what Down Syn­drome means, I’m here to tell you that I stand in full sup­port of this com­mu­ni­ty, and I en­cour­age you to do the same. These beau­ti­ful boys and girls, young men and young women are valiant, mighty and strong. They’re beau­ti­ful, brave and bril­liant. They are CA­PA­BLE. They can and will do amaz­ing things.

Friends, I’m here to re­mind you that the ex­tra chro­mo­some does not mean less valu­able, less ca­pa­ble or less im­por­tant in any way.

It just means more to love.

It’s im­por­tant for us to show that we ap­pre­ci­ate them as val­ued mem­bers of the so­ci­ety. Each of us de­serve a safe space to ex­plore, learn and grow. Our na­tion­al an­them says, “here every creed and race find an equal place,” that means each one of us should get op­por­tu­ni­ties to re­al­ly pur­sue and ac­com­plish our goals and dreams.

The theme for World Down Syn­drome Day is With Us, Not For Us. I think this means that we have to con­tin­ue to sup­port them while giv­ing them room to be in­de­pen­dent, to do what they want to do and be who they want to be!

As cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, we have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to help each oth­er learn, grow and live our best lives. I’m glad that you’re all here to cel­e­brate this group of amaz­ing­ly tal­ent­ed peo­ple. So sit back, re­lax and pre­pare to en­joy this fab­u­lous show! Aren’t you ex­cit­ed to see all the amaz­ing fash­ion?

I know I am! Thank you!