Share your experiences of living with or caring for someone with Autism and gain knowledge from health and educational experts at a free event next month aimed at raising awareness within the African community.
Organised by not-for-profit charity – the GUBA Foundation – the event will give parents and care-givers of children with Autism an opportunity to talk directly to experts about their experiences.
Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects communication, social interaction and how a person makes sense of the world around him or her.
The condition affects one in every 100 people in the UK, which means that over 100,000 people living with the condition come from black or ethnic minority (BME) communities. But despite this figure, people from the BME community are typically diagnosed later than their white counterparts, and face more of an uphill struggle trying to seek support.
Social stigma attached to mental health issues within the black community, a lack of trust in the health care system and cultural insensitivity within education can also cause parents to resist seeking treatment, even when signs of the disorder are evident.
The GUBA Foundation’s inaugural family focus event on 27 April aims to tackle this problem head-on by creating a platform for care-givers to enhance personal growth by talking openly about their daily challenges, improve access to information and challenge myths associated with Autism.
