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Brief description

The “ABLA Project” (A Better Life for the Autistic persons) is a project of international collaboration between all the appropriate persons and entities, proposed by the Autistan Diplomatic Organization in order to improve the life of the autistic persons by reducing the problems and misunderstandings, which relies on the Autistance system, and:
– which places the autistic persons at the centre of the reflections and decision-making,
– which uses low-cost Internet tools for the mutual help and education of the families,
– which advises the governmental authorities.

Key ideas

An international approach

Such a project has to be international because there are only a very small handful of persons in the world who truly understand autism and who can share their explanations or experiences.
They may be autistic persons, or sometimes parents, or (very rarely) non-autistic professional specialists.
It is necessary to get them to collaborate.

With the autistic persons at the center

Even when they have difficulty expressing themselves, autistic persons are in the best position to really know what their difficulties and special needs are.

In addition, they have as many rights and freedoms as anyone else in deciding how to live their lives.

The fact that this project is conceived by the Autistan Diplomatic Organization helps to ensure that the voices and rights of autistic people are heard, understood and respected as much as possible.

This does not mean that autistic people fully direct this project, which is a co-construction with the best will and best knowledge of all the persons who want and/or can improve the situation of autistic people in general.

An inexpensive mutual aid system for the families

The main reason for this project is that in the majority of countries the parents of autistic persons are distraught and cannot find specialists or even reliable sources of information.
Even when a few good specialists exist in a country, they are overwhelmed and most families do not have sufficient financial means anyway.

Moreover, the right approaches, attitudes and actions to help an autistic person must be carried out on a daily basis by his or her immediate and natural social environment: the family.
No approach or method can work properly with an autistic person if it is not applied permanently and with the utmost consistency.

For all these reasons, it is absolutely necessary to give priority to the training of parents.

This can be done remotely, through communication via the Internet and through sites such as Autistance.org.

This is why this project consists in helping families to access the correct information, and also in helping them to organize themselves locally to support each other in small groups.

For example, a bilingual parent who understands the language of an existing video clip of training that we would select will be able to share this knowledge with other parents at local meetings at home.
The same is true for parents who are not comfortable with computers or complex interfaces.

Thanks to the Internet, it is also possible to hold meetings or consultations remotely, with other parents, with autistic people, or with professional autism specialists (preferably approved by us).
When the discussions take place in writing only, the language barrier is no longer a problem with the Autistance.org website, which automatically translates the written discussions into a hundred languages.

In some countries, it would be interesting to propose to government authorities to subsidize the purchase of tablets or telephones and Internet access necessary for parents of autistic persons using the tools we want to make available free of charge.

Advising the public authorities

Given that most of the suffering of autistic persons stems from the failure of the social and administrative systems to take proper account of autism, and that only the government authorities have the power to make the necessary corrections, it is absolutely essential to obtain the collaboration of the public authorities, who anyway are generally in demand for advice on autism.

Note: The Autistan Diplomatic Organization is an extra-national entity which cannot engage in national struggles for rights. All Autistan’s projects obviously respect the rights of autistic people, but this respect and our explanations and advice are separate from the demands or claims that must be made at the national level by associations of autistic people and of parents of autistic people.
As a result, thanks to the absence of any pressure, we can hope for a more relaxed working environment, and for the more attentive and favourable listening so crucial on the part of the national public authorities.

Documents and participation

If you are a participant,
– you can access and read the documents describing each detail of the project,
– you can contribute to the discussion at the bottom of each document, which is how we can improve these texts little by little in order to build the ABLA Project.

If you are not a participant, the first documents of this project are open for discussions and for your suggestions or questions (at the bottom).

Currently, this project contains the following documents;
please feel free to discover and to comment them: this is how we will build this project, together.
Thank you.

[Autistan.org | S030000 | [S031000] ABLA Project (A Better Life for the Autistics)]