A FAMILY of an 'inspirational' toddler aim to raise over £100,000 for charity.

Henry Freeman was born in November 2017 and was found to be profoundly deaf.

Mum Kayleigh Simms, of Green Park, Wrexham, said: "When he got diagnosed, our world fell apart. When you're pregnant you expect to have a perfectly healthy baby, not that he isn't perfect, but you don't expect anything to be wrong.

"I spent time in a dark place and we just want to raise awareness of it and money for the charity.

The Leader:

Henry Freeman

"We want people to know that there is a happy ending and he will achieve everything we want him to achieve.

"It's quite an inspirational story."

Ms Simms said herself and her fiancé Adam Freeman received help from the National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS) who supported them through early diagnosis conferences and sign language lessons.

Now they said they want to give back, and aim to raise over £140,000 for the charity.

Kayleigh said: "We both work for one of the largest software companies in the UK - Access and this year we nominated the NDCS as our charity of the year and it has been picked.

"There's 2,000 people in our company and we have lots of events lined up.

"It's a massive number to hit but we can do it. Everyone at the company is willing to help out."

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Adam Freeman kickstarted the fundraising by completing the London triathlon

Last year the company chose to raise funds for DEBRA - a charity raising awareness of epidermolysis bullosa - and over £140,000 was raised, which was matched by the company, bringing the total to £280,000.

Kayleigh said they want to beat that target for their chosen charity, and they have already raised over £3,000.

She added: "Adam took on the London triathlon this weekend to start it all off.

"Not only do we want to raise as much money as we can, we want to raise deaf awareness.

"We are so lucky in Wrexham but I think more awareness does need to be raised and getting rid of that ignorance around deaf people, especially children who are deaf.

"It was a massive challenge. When you're a first time parent it's a complete learning curve, you don't have a clue what you're doing and when you have a child with extra needs, it is challenging, but it's well worth it.

"I felt like a cloud has been lifted. I'm a massive advocate of Henry and the only thing deaf people can't do is fight on the front line and be a commercial pilot so the world is his oyster.

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Henry Freeman

"I needed those people (NDCS) to help me get to that place."

Kayleigh said the company she works for has programmes that do Learning Management and they want to be able to provide a British Sign Language course as part of their system - helping to spread awareness and the knowledge of sign into the work place.

She added: "Our son was lucky enough to be eligible for cochlear implants and he had surgery in March to give him the chance to hear.

“We decided to make a video to explain the journey we’ve been on, the importance of sign being taught to children and the amazing moment Henry heard for the first time.”

The cochlear implant is a surgically implanted device that provides a sense of sound to a person with moderate to profound hearing loss.

"As part of our wedding in September we will have part of it in sign language because we thought it would be great to embrace Henry's language," Kayleigh added.

"We will keep the sign language going because we want him to embrace who he is."