When Kate Driscoll from Illinois was looking through all the back-to-school ads and pictures around, she noticed that none of them had much diversity.
None of them looked like her six children, particularly not like her four-year-old daughter Grace, who has Downs syndrome.
Kate, who runs a photography business, 5 boys + 1 girl = 6 Photography, also co-founded a movement called Changing the Face of Beauty, which aims to integrate people with disabilities into mainstream imagery and advertising.
Kate explained the reason for putting the shoot together.
“I noticed that conscious decisions were made to include boys and girl and minorities, but I wondered why kids with disabilities weren’t included,” Kate said, “especially with school ads because all kids go to school”
“I put a casting call out and got together a group of children that I thought would represent all children returning to school,”
“Obviously, you can’t include every diagnosis but I wanted people to see differences because it’s important.”
For Kate it’s important not just for children with disabilities to see people in advertising that they identify with, but for other kids to see them and be able to relate to kids with disabilities.
“Wouldn’t it be great if they saw somebody who used crutches or who has Down syndrome and they’d be able to relate to another child who might be in their classroom,” Kate said.
