My name is Mikey, I‘m 19 years old and I live with a diagnosis of verbal dyspraxia (apraxia), a neurological speech disorder. I raise awareness of verbal dyspraxia through my facebook page. My diagnosis also had a huge impact on my schooling, I fell 4 years behind my peers by the age of 11 when I started senior school with the reading and writing age of a 7 year old. Thanks to the amazing support that I recieved throughout my education, along with hard work and dedication I managed to catch up with my peers and pass all my GCSE’s (although English Language took me 3 attempts). Sadly though, not everyone is as lucky as me and some children don‘t receive the support they need due to a lack of funding.

This is why I also raise funds for Special Educational Needs as I believe that EVERY child should have access to an education, not just a lucky few. So far I have donated £11,000 to the SEN department at Balsall Common Primary School. Due to Covid and the lockdown rules, it has proved very difficult to raise funds this year and my aim is to donate to two schools this year.

I have taken it upon myself to run 500 miles for Special Educational Needs, starting on 1st December 2020 and finishing on 14th May 2021(verbal dyspraxia awareness day) I will be running an average of 21 miles a week, finishing with me running my last 7 miles with each year group from my old primary school running 1 mile with me.

https://www.facebook.com/mikeyswish