Lise's Team

I'm running for Lise

For the third year in a row I will run 31.6kms. This might seem an odd number, however, it represents the unemployment rate among adults with autism in Australia. This is three times the rate of people with disability, and almost six times the rate of people without disabilities. 

It's crucial to focus on inclusivity and accepting differences in order to reduce this number.

I would like to invite all adults, parents, and care-givers to introduce the topic of difference to their children. Sometimes, it’s easier for children to understand physical differences, e.g. short vs tall, blond hair vs black hair, skin colours etc. These differences are easy to spot, and it is important to accept them.

Some differences are not visible though. For instance, we all have different brains, different ways of thinking, different cultures, different pasts, different challenges. Autism is one of these differences that are not easy to see.

Children on the autism spectrum are usually inflexible, hyper or hypo-sensible, and have hard time to create a relationship with others. When they play, they like to do it in a certain way. For instance, when your child spends a day at the beach, he/she usually build sand castles and swim with his/her friends. My daughter spends her time looking for shells and sorting them out in every possible way, all of that while repeating dragon species in her mind. That does make her different, but not “less or more” than any other kid.

We all need a World where children show adults what it is to include others and embrace differences. That’s this idea that we want to raise while running for Autism. Let’s all see differences as enriching instead of scary.