Today, the 21st of March, Down Syndrome World Day is being celebrated and, just as over these recent years, we have had the luck and the privilege of sharing a morning working day at our Pamplona stores with Ana Gálvez and Aintzane Lizarraga. These two girls have Down Syndrome but that did not prevent them from experiencing a busy Monday morning working day alongside our regular shop assistants, Zuriñe, Leyre and Mayara.

This initiative began five years ago in response to a request made by the Navarra Down Syndrome Association and nowadays 41 stores in downtown Pamplona have responded to their appeal by taking on some Down Syndrome staff to help out in their businesses on this special day. The aim is to make the general public more aware of this sector of our society and to give these young people an opportunity to experience a normal working life. In this way, they can learn to live a more autonomous and self-reliant way of life and also help society to fraternize in a more natural way with these people.

Ana, aged 22, and Aintzane, who is 34, both worked all morning as sales assistants in our stores. They attended to the public and also helped display the latest Kukuxumusu T-shirt collection. They also worked in the storeroom and replaced stock which had been sold over the past days. In short, they soon caught on to the true Kukuxumusu spirit of work and play. Meanwhile, many others just like them, were to be found in many different commercial premises around the town center of the old part of Iruñea.

Each year Kukuxumusu takes part in this event ever since the agreement reached between the Down Syndrome Association and the Commercial Business Association of the old part of Pamplona.

And indeed, this is far from being the only collaboration we have had with these kinds of undertakings from the Down Syndrome Association in their endeavor to normalize life for young people who have this condition. The most recent was a set of designs that we made for the Escor Gaztedi, a rugby club from Vitoria, which has a rugby team made up of boys and girls who have Down Syndrome. This club encourages self-reliance and independence among this sector by encouraging them to participate in sports events and activities.