Super Power Baby Project
  • Home
    • Media & Updates
    • Impact
    • The Project
  • Buy the Book
  • Meet some beautiful humans
  • Videos
  • Contact

Evie's super power continues to teach

7/1/2015

 
Picture
From the Christchurch Press, 7 Jan 2015

Evie Callander is an unlikely superhero.

She lived just two years, but inspired a book, a change in how disabled children are viewed and a remarkable fundraising campaign to empower other kids like her.

Evie was born in 2008 with a rare chromosomal disorder.

Sam and Rachel Callander were told their daughter would have developmental delays, would never walk or talk and "would not thrive". But they decided to celebrate what Evie could do rather than what she couldn't.

They invented a "new language" that described their daughter's "super powers", including an ability to draw people to her like a magnet.

They didn't use words like disability, abnormality or retardation.

Evie died in 2010 but her legacy lives on through the Super Power Baby Project. A fundraising campaign for the project on PledgeMe in September 2013 raised more than $85,000 in 35 days.

The money allowed Rachel, an award-winning wedding and portrait photographer, to hit the road and photograph more children with genetic abnormalities in their home towns.

More than 70 Kiwi kids, all with their own "super powers", have now been enshrined in the Super Power Baby Project book.

Since its launch in August, Rachel has shared the ideas behind it with thousands of people.

She spoke to 2500 people at TedX Auckland, an "amazing opportunity to share so passionately about what I believe in", and 150 paediatricians - "the ones in the front lines" - at a conference in Napier.

"Often the first thing paediatricians will say is, 'We're sorry' or, 'We should have seen this coming', and it just puts that negativity straight away into the parents' minds," Rachel said.

"They are [now] rethinking how they phrase those first encounters to make the journey as positive as possible."

Rachel said health boards were buying copies for their clinics and schools were getting copies for their libraries.

She and Sam still missed Evie every day, but it was "a different kind" of sadness. "What she has taught us and allowed us to share is beyond incredible. We're so proud of her." 


Comments are closed.

    in the Media

    Work in the media? Contact us to join a growing list of those who've helped share the Super Power Baby Project story.

    Archives

    May 2017
    April 2016
    December 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    October 2013
    September 2013

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Home | Buy the Book | Media & Updates | Contact

 www.superpowerbabyproject.org  Rachel Callander,  2F 618 Hay St, Perth WA 6000 Australia +61 420583245
  • Home
    • Media & Updates
    • Impact
    • The Project
  • Buy the Book
  • Meet some beautiful humans
  • Videos
  • Contact