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T21 Alchemy: Raising Awareness and Expanding Consciousness Around Disability and Neurodiversity
EVERY person comes to this world with a special and unique purpose that they must be supported to fulfil. And this belief is the heartbeat of T21 ALCHEMY
UPDATE: What your support has already made possible
When this campaign began, T21 Alchemy was a creative conviction that didn't yet have an infrastructure. Your contributions changed that. Thank you.
The early support gave me something that traditional funding rarely does first: time. Time to bring together a creative team before there was institutional backing. Time to begin gathering interest, building early relationships, and laying the foundations that made the next steps possible.
That creative team mattered. It was already in place when I applied for Arts Council England Research and Development funding and this greatly strengthened my application. Your support helped create the conditions that made the Arts Council feel there was something real here worth backing.
Along the way, the work has had the opportunity to grow in public; from an early sharing of initial ideas and poetry at Certain Blacks' Afro Futures Festival, through to a full script sharing at The Albany, which came after the R&D funding was secured. Each stage built on the last.
That R&D funding also made possible the beginnings of strengthening our early partner relationships (including with organisations such as Certain Blacks and Diverse City).
Alongside that, we launched a podcast series and began gathering lived experience from SEND mothers, carers, and disabled people, allowing this work to stay rooted in truth and care.
About me
My name is Oneness Sankara. I am a mother of a child with Down syndrome, a writer, performer, theatre practitioner and award‑winning spoken word artist.
I received my son’s Trisomy 21 (Down syndrome) diagnosis shortly after his birth. Those early months were especially difficult: he needed two eye operations, and we were suddenly navigating a whole new world of medical language, appointments and unknowns.
I remember lying in a hospital bed, searching the internet for a family that resembled mine and finding very little. The information I found on T21 was mostly archaic, with barely any non‑white representation. It was isolating, even though I was blessed with a beautiful baby and the love of my community.
Today, my son is eight years old and brings so much joy into our lives. He is wise, funny, talented, intelligent, cheeky, brave and kind. All qualities that were not reflected as possibilities in those early days.
As a parent of a disabled child, I move between and within disabled communities and families, and I carry that layered lived experience into this work.
What is T21 Alchemy?
T21 Alchemy is a spoken word musical theatre production centred on a Black British mother raising her son with Down syndrome; exploring disability, race, neurodiversity, and what it really means to hold a life with care. It is built for parent carers, disabled communities, health professionals, educators, policy makers, and anyone who has ever felt their story was missing from the room.
Alongside the production, the project includes a podcast, talks, workshops, and live performances that create ongoing dialogue rather than a one-off event.
What this phase requires
The last phase was a success and now the script exists and the team is in place. This next stage is the work that doesn't happen on stage.
This phase is about building a new level of partnerships and relationships that will take T21 Alchemy into a full production, a run, and a tour. It allows for the podcast to continue and expand and it allows for the raising of the profile of the work so it reaches the people the work is for; parent carers, disabled communities, health professionals, educators, policy makers, allies and anyone who has ever felt their story was missing from the room.
This takes time. And for an independent artist who is also the primary carer of a disabled child, time has a real cost.
Your support funds six months of protected development time and the practical conditions that make it possible for me to show up for this work sustainably and around my responsibilities as a parent and carer.
What your contribution enables
The most important thing your support does is this: it protects the time and conditions for this work to exist at all.
- More specifically, it enables time to develop the partnerships, co-production relationships, and sector connections that will take this show into its next phase (a full run and eventual tour); the creative development of the podcast and wider content so T21 Alchemy reaches beyond the theatre and into the communities it serves; the practical conditions that allow me to lead this work as a parent-artist, structuring a creative practice around caring responsibilities at a pace that is burnout free; and the ongoing work of bringing underrepresented parent-carer voices into spaces where decisions are made, through performance, dialogue, and the kind of presence that changes how people think.
How to support:
- Give once, here- any amount is welcomed and has a direct impact on this phase of the work.
- Give monthly- if you want to stay with the work as it grows, Ko-fi is where ongoing support lives. Set whatever amount feels right. In return, you'll get voice notes, behind-the-scenes reflections, and glimpses into the creative process when I have them. Click here to make regular support
- Share this page- one share to the right person can change everything. If this work belongs in someone's world, please send it there.
- Broker an introduction- if you know a venue, producer, festival, funder, health organisation, school, or broadcaster who should know about T21 Alchemy, I would genuinely welcome that connection.
- Invite me- I'm available for talks, keynotes, performances, and facilitated conversations. If this work belongs in a room you're connected to, let's talk.
What you're part of
There is a parent somewhere right now in a waiting room, or a 3am internet search, or a hospital bed; looking for a reflection of themselves and not finding it.
This work is being made for them.
And for the professionals who sit across from them who will be inspired to rethink how they show up for them.
Your support keeps this alive long enough to reach them.
Thank you.
Organizer
