How your donations help!

Jeans for Genes Day provides funding for the care and support of children with genetic disorders through our grant programme. Each year we offer funding to a range of charities and in 2013, 21 charities benefited from the funds raised on Jeans for Genes Day.

We are already putting the money to go use.

This year you have funded a special theatre production from Oily Cart called ‘Tube’ involving a colourful, tactile ‘wonderland’ using specialised, multi-sensory techniques inviting audience members into a world of learning and imagination.

Oily Cart is one of the UK’s leading theatre companies creating multi-sensory interactive performances for very young children and young people with profound and multiple learning disabilities and young people with an autistic spectrum disorder. The young people who participate in Oily Cart productions are affected by a range of genetic conditions including Reye’s syndrome, Down’s syndrome, Lejeune’s syndrome. Through experiencing the magic of TUBE, children learn and develop using the power of their senses. With colour, light, sound and smell, they are transported into an unforgettable land of sensation.

Here are some photos from the first performance of ‘Tube’.

Another charity that we are supporting is the Phelan McDermid Syndrome Foundation.

Phelan McDermid syndrome (PMS) is a genetic brain disorder affecting learning and memory. Most children with PMS have significant difficulty learning to speak, some never developing this ability at all. As well as this, children affected by the syndrome often have problems eating and sleeping on top of very poor muscle tone and motor control. Most children with PMS need 24 hour care and will for their entire lives.

Our grant funded a family day for the Phelan McDermid Syndrome Foundation in the UK, offering families affected by PMS the invaluable chance to meet other families affected by the same condition, and receive the expert medical support and advice they so desperately need.