A Special Summer

In this program we meet nine young people of variousbackgrounds with intellectual disabilities. They moveinto a typical Swedish summerhouse in the beautifularchipelago outside Stockholm during one amazingsummer. Here they will compete in different challengesthat have to do with their upcoming adulthood. Thewinners of each competition get to do something funwhile the losers receive a ‘household penalty’. Thegoal of the program is to become more adult and moreindependent before the summer is over. Each episodehas a different theme like family, money, sexuality andhousehold duties. This is a beautiful summer televisionreality series with lots of happiness and laughter, a littledisappointment and sorrow and of course some love.The idea for this program sprung from our extensiveresearch that shows a need for discussing these matterswithin the community of people with intellectualdisabilities. The series is published and used withinSweden’s ‘special schools’. However, is was also airednationwide during prime time on Sweden’s publicbroadcasting channel SVT2 - helping the generalaudience to better understand and appreciate thediversity within our society and also help building abridge between people with special challenges andothers.