{"id":260304,"date":"2022-01-07T10:44:22","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T16:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=260304"},"modified":"2022-01-06T22:09:56","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T04:09:56","slug":"australian-woman-college-down-syndrome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/australian-woman-college-down-syndrome\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian woman believed to be country’s first college graduate with Down syndrome"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rachel High of Adelaide, Australia, is celebrating a monumental achievement after becoming the first known college graduate with Down syndrome<\/a> in her country.<\/p>\n

Rachel and her mother, Miriam, spoke with ABC News<\/a> about the 10-year journey it took for the 44-year-old to navigate the university system and get her degree from Flinders University, saying it wasn’t necessarily the academic work but the social isolation that was most difficult for Rachel.<\/p>\n

“There was no mentor, there was nobody meeting her at the gate and taking her into the classroom, there was nobody sharing that experience with her \u2026 and that caused incredible isolation, so much so that she didn’t want to stay,” Miriam said. “She’d had enough [and] she said, ‘I don’t like it there, I’m on my own, nobody speaks to me.'”<\/p>\n

Rachel wanted to quit, but her parents encouraged her and established a buddy support person who could accompany Rachel to her classes. The University later took over this model, establishing a mentorship program to help people like Rachel.<\/p>\n