Disrupting Society’s Assumptions About Disability - Coordown’s Viral International Video Campaigns

By Catia Malaquias

In the disability media context, we often hear about “public awareness” campaigns – the need to make the public aware of a particular type of disability or condition. These campaigns, often associated with fund-raising for disability associations, often have the negative effect of reinforcing society’s historically-based assumptions of disability.

Over the last few years, Coordown, Italy’s national Down syndrome association, working with creative directors Luca Pannese and Luca Lorenzini (formerly of Satchi & Satchi (Milan and New York) and now with Publicis Worldwide (New York)), has led the production of a number of award-winning international media campaigns for World Down Syndrome Day.

Coordown’s campaigns stand out as they are about much more than just creating “public awareness” – they are creative and beautifully produced social advocacy campaigns that seek to disrupt and challenge society’s preconceptions about Down syndrome and disability generally.

As mass-reach media campaigns, Coordown’s campaigns are also valuable in their penetrating representation of people with disability in mainstream media. The campaigns have been featured on commercial television, at sporting events, in mainstream magazines (print and on-line), on social media and more recently have been supported by internet websites. One of the Coordown campaigns, Dear Future Mom, their most awarded and probably best known, was banned from French television, and the ban is presently being challenged in the European Court of Human Rights.

Take the time to watch some of Coordown’s campaigns over the last few years – they are each about 2 minutes long.

I was very privileged to be involved in the last few.

INTEGRATION DAY – Including people with Down syndrome in mainstream media, employment and the community – disrupting the absence of people with Down syndrome in society and media.