00:00NGO Autism United TT, based in St. Mary's Village, Moruga, recently hosted a beach cleanup
00:07exercise aimed at including and teaching children on the spectrum to care for the environment.
00:14We are operating under the theme of inspiring responsibility through disabilities. So we are
00:20teaching the children, even though they have a disability, it is important for them to take
00:24responsibility for their environment and the communities in which they live. The organization
00:29was founded by parents of an autistic child driven by a need to support families and raise awareness
00:37in rural communities within Moruga. We have a child who is autistic, he's 12 years old, so we've been
00:43in the business of autism for approximately 12 years old and what we've realized is that in areas
00:50such as Moruga, Marak, Laloon, Moruga in its entirety and even St. Mary's there are a lot of people who
00:57are unaware of autism and as such they have children who are undiagnosed and therefore it was important
01:05for us to start this group so that those coming after us could also learn about autism and we could
01:10have early intervention because that is key. Unfortunately, she says far too often autistic
01:18children are misunderstood or misjudged. Autism is something that does not have a look,
01:24right? It's a spectrum and a child could be fully functional and a child could be fully dependent
01:30and it's difficult and it's difficult to tell sometimes if a child is autistic but if you see
01:37behaviors we want to create a level of awareness where if you see certain behaviors that you do not
01:43have a touch of stigma but you try to understand from the standpoint that this child may have a disability.
01:50Khan Mohammed says a key area in desperate need of governmental intervention is the field of education.
01:58Right now it is so difficult. I know there's been a recent suspension on student aids for students and
02:06I can tell you that throughout the years my child has had a lot of different aids and a lot
02:11of situations
02:12which would have warranted the aids being reposted elsewhere and that is a problem because when you
02:20lose an aid, a ministry aid or OJT aid, first of all there aren't many in the system and when
02:26you do get one
02:27it is difficult to keep them. So what I would really like to see going forward is more support for
02:33children in the area
02:34in the area of education and providing aids for them in school. Cindy Raghuubantika Singh, TV6 News.
