Foundation Sets Up Resource Centre Abuja for Persons Suffering Down Syndrome 

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja 

Down Syndrome Foundation Nigeria, a non-governmental, non- profit organization has unveiled an education and skill acquisition centre for persons suffering a form of intellectual disability known as Down Syndrome.

The centre is to serve as a rehabilitation, training and empowerment place for those affected by the peculiar health challenge.

Speaking yesterday at the official opening of the centre known as Abuja Resource Centre in Lugbe – in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, National President of the Down Syndrome Foundation Nigeria, Mrs. Rose Mordi said the facility will provide support and advocacy and ensure the rights for persons with Down Syndrome and intellectual disabilities are protected.

She said that her Foundation has been involved in providing care for persons with Down Syndrome for over 24 years with headquarters in Lagos. 

Mordi also explained that contrary to public perception, Down Syndrome is not an illness but a condition of a person with an extra genetic material.

“I’m blessed with a daughter who was born with a condition called Down syndrome. I would also want to explain that Down syndrome is not a disease, it’s not an illness, it is a condition the person will be born with an extra genetic material. 

“All of us have 46 chromosomes, inherited from our parents, 23 from the father, 23 from the mother, making it 46. So, we all have 46 chromosomes in all the cells in our body, but the person who is going to born with a condition called Down Syndrome will be born with an extra chromosome that makes it 47 and it is that single extra chromosome that predisposes someone to be born with that condition, called Down syndrome,” he said.

On the nature of intervention, the resource will provide, she said: “This center is a promise that every child with an intellectual disability will be given the chance to thrive, a promise that parents will never have to walk the journey alone, a promise that with the right support, our children can achieve far more than society normally expects of them.”

Speaking on what motivated her into volunteering to attend to people with Down Syndrome condition, Mordi said her experience started 38 years ago, “when her last daughter was born with that condition here very little or nothing was known about that condition. 

“There was so much superstition and ignorance that made families that have these children would hide them away. And I decided to take the poop at the helmet, and I said, we have to change the narrative when I found out that my daughter had this condition. 

Speaking in an interview with THISDAY, the National Administrator of the Foundation, Mrs. Nike Dennis described the services provided by the Foundation as very unique.

According to Nike Dennis, some of children with Down Syndrome condition suffer serious health challenges at birth while others have hole in their heart that requires major surgery abroad.