OUTSIDE the Box, Ilkley’s Community Cafe, has joined forces with the creator of an entirely crowdfunded children’s story book “Trudy and Me” to educate others about the reality of living with a child with Down’s Syndrome.

Lauren Lockhart, a SEND teacher who previously lived in Baildon, and mother of the eponymous Trudy, created the beautifully illustrated children’s book with her friend Bridget Campbell after they both recognised a lack of diversity and under-representation of children with disabilities in picture books.

The story itself is written from the perspective of Trudy’s older brother Patrick and forms a poem which describes day-to-day life with Trudy, alongside pictures by photographer Jo Tennant of the children playing together.

After great success supplying the book to schools and hospitals in Scotland where the family now live, Lauren contacted Outside The Box, where she used to bring Trudy as a baby, to offer a few boxes of the book to give out to customers visiting the cafe. Incredibly, the books have been so popular that Outside the Box is already awaiting another delivery after they flew off the counter. The books were also supplied to nearby schools and libraries.

The cafe is promoting the book in the hope that this could be the start of its introduction to the rest of the UK as a tool for teaching acceptance of diversity and disability, a principle value championed by the charity and the work they do improving the lives of Adults with Learning Disabilities.

The community café run by the charity Ilkley Community Enterprise Ltd.

As well as a being a café open to all it provides training, work experience and a range of social and learning activities for adults and young people with learning disabilities (its members).

The Café is located at The Victorian Arcade, South Hawksworth Street, Ilkley,  and is open seven days a week 9am to 4pm 2. Ilkley Community Enterprise Ltd is a registered charity and runs as a social enterprise with any profits made reinvested back into the work of the charity and local community. The Trustees of the charity are local people who give their time and expertise voluntarily.

For further information on Outside the Box Café please email cafe@outsidetheboxcafe.com or call the café on 01943 431173

You can also follow it on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/outsidetheboxcafe/?locale=en_GB

Picture shows, from teh left: top: Catherine, Mason, Sarah, Barney (OTB Members)

Middle: Maria and Nick (OTB Members)

Bottom: Timmy (OTB Member), Lauren, Patrick, Trudy, Alex and Georgie (Trudy and Me Family).