“Uncle Jorgito.” This is what Valentina Rivero calls Jorge Ortiz, her 60-year-old uncle who has Down syndrome, with deep love. She says that growing up by her side, seeing him overcome adversities and sharing with him every moment of his life, is something that fills her with emotion and pride. She confesses that she likes her mother to tell her again and again about that day when, when she was just a baby, he rocked her in his arms for the first time.
“My uncle is a beautiful being! I think there is no one better than him in this world,” he tells Infobae Valentina, who on Monday 21 March, on the occasion of World Down Syndrome Day, decided to pay tribute to him at his school together with all his 5th year classmates at a school in Santa Elena, in Entre Ríos.
That day, the entire course wore socks of different colors on each foot and joined the global initiative that seeks to raise awareness about Down syndrome. The date was established by the UN to symbolize the trisomy of the pair 21, the chromosomal alteration that gives rise to the syndrome and which is similar in shape to the means.
The story of Valentina and Jorgito
As soon as she knew that her Dessiré was pregnant, Jorge kept hugging her. “Uncle! Uncle!” , he repeated as he fervently touched his chest. Becoming a great-uncle to Valentina, the daughter of his beloved niece, impacted him emotionally.
The man is more than an uncle to them. “He's my best friend, my partner, my sidekick. I defended myself from challenges when I was young, I went to school, I was my partner in all the games. In the afternoons, at grandmother's house, with whom she still lives, she used to play guitar and bandoneon, now she plays the flute... Jorgito is the best person in my world and I enjoyed him a lot and at his best stage”, Dessiré Ortiz (32) defines him excitedly from the home where his uncle rests.
With that admiration for Jorge Valentina grew up. “For me he was never a different person, I never saw him like that, quite the opposite. He was always one more because he was raised that way. Everyone wants him, in the village everyone knows him, he is a person without evil, he is talented and always willing to help others. That's all that's right! ”, says of the paternal great-uncle who spent the average lifespan (56 years according to statistics) of a person with the syndrome.
For a few years, Jorge has been suffering from dizziness and sometimes finds it difficult to recognize people, even his nieces, but he keeps his memories firm in his memory: his years in the town troupe or when he lived the most special moment of his life. “Do you remember when I took you arm in arm to church?” , asked Dessiré a few days ago. “How can I not remember, uncle!” , she answered him and won a hug.
“When I told him that I was going to get married, he told me that he wanted to take me to the altar, but he took me to the door of the church where my father was waiting for me,” says the woman and regrets that “the death of my grandfather, a few years ago, affected him a lot, but he was always very close to my grandmother”. “He always lived with them and now he does it with my grandmother and some aunts. Although he can't do everything he did before, he always offers to help, he always wants to do something,” he adds.
With laughter, Valentina tells Infobae: “A lot she can't do now because she's already big, but she loves washing potatoes, so they buy black potatoes and he washes them.”
A gesture of love
For three years, Valentina had been looking for ways to honor her beloved uncle and otherwise join the global initiative for Down Syndrome Day. “At home we wear the different socks every March 21 and a few years ago I wore them to school like this and they asked me what happened that I had gone like this... I was embarrassed and I put on the ones in the uniform again, then I felt that it was something that was left to me. So this year, when I have a beautiful group of colleagues, I decided to tell them the reason and propose to join the campaign. Everyone went with different stockings this Monday and even used it when they left to continue raising awareness outside of school. The exciting thing was that a kindergarten teacher congratulated us and showed us that she also used them.”
Although Jorge could not realize what had happened, his nieces know that that gesture would have moved him. “He would have been happy because he is such a transparent person that even if it is difficult for him to communicate, he says a lot with his gestures and his gaze,” says Dessiré.
The initiative was celebrated by the school and its neighbors in the village. “Hopefully next year, already in the sixth year, we can organize it better and do it in all grades of the school. What I want is for Down syndrome to continue to be talked about and that it is spoken well, because it bothers me a lot when I hear people who say 'down' as an insult. I hope that what we did will collaborate with this cause”, concludes Valentina.
Uneven stockings, a global initiative
The campaign began in the United Kingdom, when Chloe Lennon, a 5-year-old British girl, posted a video on social media in 2018 asking that, to celebrate this day, everyone should wear different tights on each foot: bright, bright, bright colors, prints, so that those who don't know why they are and, that way, everyone would be talking at least one day about Down syndrome.
His proposal was shared by more than 700,000 people and ignored boundaries and borders.
Since then, people who know or live with someone with this syndrome use a different average on each foot and upload photos to social networks with the slogan “I wear them different because we are the same” that aim to raise awareness about the dignity of people with intellectual disabilities.
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