Jono's Treacher Collins adventure.

My name is Jono Lancaster and today I’m a confident young lad with a huge smile on my face, immensely proud of who I am, I can honestly say that I love my face.

But that wasn’t always the case.

I was given up for adoption just 36 hours after I was born as my birth parents were horrified with the way I looked, luckily for me an amazing lady called Jean Lancaster came to my aid and at 2 weeks old took me home and eventually adopting me when I was 5.

I had a great family and an amazing set of friends throughout my life – but I struggled with the way I looked. Kids been scared of me, been the source of playgroung jokes, girls asking me out as a dare – I soon began to hate the world and my face.

Seeing my mum in tears as she noticed the stares and the laughter I soon stopped sharing my problems with her, a part of me felt guilty that I was the cause of her tears and I felt like I was protecting her by keeping things to myself. It was the same with my friends.

This was my face, my life and I had to deal with this by myself  I isolated myself and became lonely with no confidence.

I often pushed my eyes up to try and make them look normal – it never worked and I got so angry with myself that I couldn’t change my face. I thought why me???? People go onto play football, win the lottery, people are crazy intelligent or a hit with the girls, but me, I end up looking like this why ? – I soon stopped looking in the mirror as i hated what i saw

This went on till I was around 20 years old. I had missed out on so many things that I so wanted to do but couldn’t as I had zero confidence, i chose to hide away.

When did it all change? Without going into it all I ended up working behind a busy bar in town,  yes people were horrible but there were also the cool people, one girl asked me out on a date she said I was cool and that my face was beautiful – needless to say my confidence grew.

I became a personal trainer in a gym, in an industry obsessed with image. My confidence gradually grew and I began to feel invincible.

But even better I began to look in the mirror and instead of pushing my face up I began to smile. I started to love my face.

I now wanted to show my face to the world, to show them how happy i was and how proud i was of my face – this resulted in doing media work and staring in 3 documentaries that have since been aired all over the world.

The one thing that still annoys me is that it took me 20 years to accept who I was.

Growing up I craved to meet some one who had Treacher Collins, some one that had confidence, had a job, had a family of there own, some one to show me that things will get better.

Thats what motivates me to do what i do, i go into schools and talk about my experiences but for me more importantly i go and meet families all over the world that are living with Treacher Collins in hope that i can support them embracing them selves and been proud of who they are.

Thats where i need a little help, i work full time to try and fund all this but with the demand growing i need some more help.

i hate asking for help but i cant ignore all the pleas for me to go and meet these families, that where your donations can help.

The donations will help cover travel expenses so i can get to the families all over the world and support them the best i can.

The next destination will be the U.S in september/october 2015, ive put aside 4 weeks to visit as many families as possible.