SWINDON Down’s Syndrome Group is raising awareness of World Down’s Syndrome Day on Sunday (March 21) by encouraging people to wear odd socks.

As this week is Down’s Awareness Week, the group are challenging society’s misconceptions about people with the disability.

Member of the group, Sophie West, 18, said: “I wear my odd socks every day . I do different activities in the group like a youth club, football, tennis and swimming. The best thing about it is I have made lots of new friends.”

The charity has been supporting families online and have started parent chat coffee mornings so people feel supported while they’re not having their usual meet-ups.

Her mum Kim West, who has been a trustee for 15 years, added: “We’re like our own family but we can’t always talk to other people so it’s good as we can all bounce ideas off each other.

“We all go through it together and Sophie has just become an adult so it’s nice to have support through that transition.”

Kim and Sophie, from Haydon Wick, are looking forward to meeting up with the group soon.

Trustee Mike Billinge-Jones said: “In previous years we have been able to sell hundreds of pairs at places like Swindon police station but because of Covid that’s all gone.”

“We have ended up with 2,000 pairs and nowhere to sell them so this week being awareness week is our big campaign.”

As part of the campaign, Swindon Down’s Syndrome group are selling odd socks to fundraise and are also giving people the opportunity to win hampers.

Mike added: “We noticed some of the group not speaking as well ad they used to because they’re at home.”

“We offer speech and language therapy sessions which normally is a group of four people but it’s moved online. So now Mabel Speech Therapy offer one to one sessions which are going really well but is considerably more expensive so we need to fundraise.”

Entries close on March 21. The draw will be on March 22 and winners announced on Facebook. Find out more at www.facebook.com/swindondownsgroup