Malina was born with Down Syndrome and experiences delayed language development as a result. Mum Jagoda found us through a Google search and decided to apply for a speech therapy grant for Malina when she realised her childrenswear brand 'Malinka' fitted our trade criteria. We recently had the privilege of meeting the family, to make this very special film about their experience of applying to FTCT.

Malina and Jagoda's story

Read the full transcript here 

Get help

Our grants can help children of fashion and textile families in a variety of ways. From funding specialist therapy for a child with additional needs, like to Malina, to essential clothing, school uniform and household items for children whose parents struggle to make ends meet. To find out more and check if you can apply, read our grants pages.  

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Video transcript:

"My name is Jagoda and I run a childrenswear brand called Malinka, which specialises in hairbands for children who wear bone conduction hearing aids. It’s not like a typical hearing aid which goes inside the ear. It’s like a speaker almost which gives sounds to the ear, through the bone behind the ear. I designed the first band and it went viral as I would say, from then on I have designed seven different types of bands for the bone conductions hearing aids."

"They don’t look like medical equipment strapped to the head, they look like a normal accessory, rather than something that’s helping them."

"Our daughter Malina was the inspiration for the brand. She was born with Downs Syndrome, it affected her ability to hear and also delayed her speech development. The biggest challenge for Malina is communication. With affected hearing, she develops slower than other children. Malina uses basic sign language which I have taught her myself."

"The NHS is basically unable to provide us with one on one sessions, they just give you basic guidelines. We did try to fund therapy ourselves, but my husband is the main provider and I started my business but it’s not doing well enough to supplement the therapy sessions."

"So after many Google searches, we came across the Fashion & Textile Children’s Trust, which by the nature of my job, working in textiles, we fitted the criteria and we decided to go for it."

"When we found out we got the grant, we felt a sense of relief that Malina got such a fantastic opportunity to attend the speech and language session and we are so grateful for this."

"Already the impact on the family makes a humongous difference, we seen her more communicating, babbling and trying to speak which previously we didn’t see that. It makes my son happy because he can try to communicate more with her and for me as a Mum and my husband, just being able to say simple things and she can understand, that’s brilliant."

"For parents who have got special needs children, it’s kinda every small achievement is a big achievement. In the long term hopefully she will be able to speak basic sentences, be able to communicate with children, be able to understand what’s going on in the world around her and it just makes here happy within herself."

"If you’re thinking of apply for the Fashion & Textile Children’s Trust my advice would be just go for it. It never hurts to try. Just see what happens!"