Sama Ramy lives in Cairo, Egypt. She is 18 years old and she has Down Syndrome.

Sama graduated from mainstream secondary school last year and is now studying Sociology at Cairo University.

Throughout her education there was one thing that really bothered Sama, the term "Mongolian dementia" was used to describe Down syndrome in all of the biology text books. And so Sama launched a campaign to have this changed.

Sama wrote to the Minister of Education to challenge the term that has been taught to generations of students in Egypt.

Sama won!

I succeeded to make a big change in the Egyptian society while many many generations studied this wrong definition throughout the ages. The Minister of Education called me the icon of removing Mongolian dementia from the Egyptian curricula. - Sama Ramy

Congratulations Sama, this is a great achievement and a big step for people with Down syndrome in Egypt and beyond.

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For a guide to factually accurate and inoffensive language, take a look at our Use Of Terminology page.

USE OF TERMINOLOGY