Claire-May Minett helps raise awareness of Mosaic Down Syndrome

Claire with Victoria Wood in Edinburgh

35 year old Claire-May Minett is on a personal mission to raise awareness of Mosaic Down Syndrome as well as working as a volunteer for Rochdale and District Mind.

Claire-May, who was a service user with Mind for five years now volunteers her time with the organisation and is about to start a video editing workshop with them. She said: “We discussed film courses to do and Mind suggested film editing so that is soon to start with the help of another volunteer.”

Mind is an organisation which promotes and protects good mental health for all in society and aims to promote a society that treats people with experience of mental distress fairly, positively and with respect.

Claire, who graduated from Bolton University last year with a 2:1 in media studies is now living independently and hoping to raise awareness of Mosaic Down Syndrome.

Mosaic Down Syndrome accounts for 2-4% of all cases of Down Syndrome and people with Mosaic Down syndrome have two cell lines - one with the normal number of chromosomes, and one with an extra number, 21.

“Not many people know about Mosaic Down Syndrome and there will be people out there who have it and don’t know they have it” said Claire.

Claire was recently invited to Texas by the International Mosaic Down Syndrome Association to talk to families from different states about the condition. “I spoke about different things for growing up and wanted to promote awareness.”

“I want to try and raise awareness in the UK. I made a documentary about the condition when I was in college and when I was with Nine Lives media I pitched them a similar documentary but unfortunately they couldn’t pick it up” added Claire.

When she is not volunteering her time with Mind, Claire enjoys films and is about to start work with BBC. “I’ve got a three month trial in children’s programming and after that there could be a job with them. I’m just waiting for my start date now” said Claire.

Claire thinks it is important to continue her work on raising awareness of Mosaic Down Syndrome because of how little people know. Claire said; “I’ve printed out booklets and I am going to start putting them into libraries. This is the first step.”