Self-Advocacy in Teen Programs

We offer 3 teen programs at GiGi’s Playhouse Chicago, and they alternate each Thursday night. One night you’ll find Dance and Cooking Club on the agenda, and the following week Teen Tastic will take up the 2 hour block. Like all of our programs, our teens experience purposeful and progressive activities each time they come.  Expressing their thoughts and feelings across different mediums is a common focus in a lot of our teen programs. The participants come together as a group and have discussions. They get up on stage and act things out. The teens even get in small groups to work on problem solving skills. All of these methods and more strengthen their communication and self-advocacy skills.

One of our teen participants, Ahmad, wanted to write down how much GiGi’s Playhouse means to him and all of the great times he’s had since he started coming. We welcomed his story with excitement and anticipation as he typed it out from his home computer. Thank you Ahmad for sharing your appreciation and being an inspiration to the other participants in the teen programs!

Ahmad’s Story

My story with GiGi’s

We moved to chicago july 2014 I started school on september I went to walter payton college prep.

My mom started to look for me for after school stuff, she knew about Gigi’s from the internet..Chicago playhouse was not open yet then we knew it started.

My first time in the playhouse was a santa party we did not know anyone, but we found many people my age with down syndrom like me. i took a photo with Santa and he give me a small teddy.

we attend two other Santa parties all had music and food One time there was Elvis he was so much fun I danced alot.

What do i do at Gigi’s? I go to cooking class, we make pizza we talked about peanut butter I love peanut butter,I also go teen tastic we do sports and jumping we did a gorup papper sheet we used a scanner we print our names.

We also did the art poject we put our painting in a famous galary and took photo. I had speech session in gigi’s.

What do you want to see in gigi’s: I want meet a celebrity to give me autograph  we can make a musical something with drums , men fashion show with my friends Emily Rayan jane Tess Quinzy.

Support The Teen Programs

If you are interested in supporting the programs Ahmad and his friends enjoy so much we would really appreciate it! We could really use gift cards to grocery stores like Aldi, Jewel Osco, and Marianos for the Cooking Club. Gift cards to Amazon are a great way to support all the programs so that we may purchase the supplies and equipment they need. Sign up for our Newsletter and you’ll receive important information about the programs and our playhouse Wish List!