Spreading awareness for DMD

By Paxton Swisher, M&M TIPster

Most Americans haven’t heard of it. Most people can’t tell you what it is. No, it’s not some new fad. It’s the number one genetic killer of kids.

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, or DMD, is becoming more and more common and there is no cure. Before, about 6 years ago there weren’t many fund-raisers for it either. This all changed when a 15 year old Darius Weems, who had never left Athens, Georgia set off on a road-trip with 11 of his friends. Darius has DMD and went on the trip mainly to get his wheelchair pimped on the popular show “Pimp My Ride.” But he also wanted to spread awareness about DMD. The documentary about this trip was entitled “Darius Goes West” or DGW. The movie went viral, fast. Using aspects of social media like Twitter and Facebook, this sparked the raging fire that is the “Darius Goes West” campaign against DMD. Since the movie, the DGW team has taken every opportunity to spread the word and gather donations to fight DMD and hopefully find a cure in our generation.
Since the release of the film, the population helping to fight DMD has greatly increased. More and more people are seeing the film and wanting to make a difference. Darius describes the way the message is mostly spread is by “word of mouth.” The newest development in the campaign against DMD is that the DGW movie is now free on their website. They call this the “Play it Forward” campaign. This was started in the hopes that people will watch the movie for free, and then forward it and send it to all their friends, spreading the message about DMD. But the movie and play it forward campaign is just one aspect of the overall one to fight DMD.

Not only is the campaign meant to spread the word about DMD, but also about having wheelchair accessible buildings. In the film, Derius was often unable to go places because they weren’t wheelchair accessible. Darius said in an interview, “I like to go to places that aren’t accessible so that if they see me, like a real person, they’ll want to change it. If they see me they’ll be inspired to change it.” This is another cause that the campaign to spread awareness can help.

In the film, Darius is bet to eat a spoonful of wasabi, or “goslabi” as he calls it. Being one of the most loved parts of the movie, the DGW team decided to start up the “goslabi challenge.” According to their website, participants are supposed to start a fund-raising page. Once the fund goal is met, they each eat a spoonful of wasabi sauce and record it on film. The proceeds then go to help DMD and the best videos are eligible to win cool prizes. This will both raise funds for finding a cure to DMD and spread awareness about the disease.

From the “goslabi challenge” to Darius being interviewed on news programs to Big Daddy Weems himself visiting schools across the country, it’s obvious that the campaign to find a cure for, and spread awareness of, DMD are going well. However, the fight is not won yet. Donations are still needed, and there are many Americans who still don’t know what Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is. Help the campaign for spreading the message about DMD by donating through the “Darius Goes West” website, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube

Paxton Swisher, 15 years old, is a sophomore at Parish Episcopal school in Dallas,Texas.