A Special Summer

In this program we meet nine young people of various backgrounds with intellectual disabilities. They move into a typical Swedish summerhouse in the beautiful archipelago outside Stockholm during one amazing summer. Here they will compete in different challenges that have to do with their upcoming adulthood. The winners of each competition get to do something, funwhile the losers receive a ‘household penalty’. The goal of the program is to become more adult and more independent before the summer is over. Each episode has a different theme like family, money, sexuality and household duties. This is a beautiful summer television reality series with lots of happiness and laughter, a little disappointment and sorrow and of course some love. The idea for this program sprung from our extensive research that shows a need for discussing these matters within the community of people with intellectual disabilities. The series is published and used within Sweden’s ‘special schools’. However, it was also aired nationwide during prime time on Sweden’s public broadcasting channel SVT2 - helping the general audience to better understand and appreciate the diversity within our society and also help to build abridge between people with special challenges and others.