Aspies For Freedom

At my school I've started a club for autistic rights advocacy, and so far at least two other aspies have joined, two others whose neurotypes I'm unaware, and my good neurotypical friend who started the club with me. Since it is a relatively small high school, I am amazed that this is even happening (one of people who joined was thinking of starting a club like this one herself).

I have some ideas of what to do (we meet weekly during lunch), but I am looking for input on what kinds of activities to do. For instance, I'd like to start a fundraising campaign at our school, but the form asks what charity the money goes to, and the only autism charities I can think of are curebie.

On that thought, does anyone know how much a short public service announcement might cost (to run on the air, not to make it - I have video and editing equipment to use). Even if just on pbs or something (as the major networks would cost not only an arm and a leg, but probably the souls of thirty people). I know things like that can run on Youtube, but the only people who'd see something like that would probably people who'd search the word 'autism' - they'd be curebies or autistic self-advocates, and neither group would likely be impacted.

On my own, I have submitted a short essay about autistic rights to NPR's This I Believe essay contest, where they read selected essays on the air. Not very likely that it's going to be picked, but people in my class told me they were very nearly moved to tears.

I am also planning on coordinating a protest of the nearest autism walk this fall - even if I'm the only one who can make it, as not everyone is going to be available to go.

One thing I would like to do is to get money to buy books that are good information sources on autism and donate them to local libraries. When Autistic Pride day comes around, I want to contact the local libraries and try to arrange for there to be something highlighting this fact (such as, on the black heritage month, there is a section of books about African Americans in view, with a sign saying 'black heritage month' or something).

I also want to raise awareness at my school. For one, I will try to get it in the announcements something about autistic pride day, but also (especially since many students don't pay any attention to the announcements), I would like to arrange some kind of event during lunch. This can be a fundraiser (although, as I said above, I still wouldn't know exactly what kind of fundraiser I could do), or it can simply be about giving people autism fact sheets (comparing myths & realities).

So...any ideas?

Well, yeah, but I have no idea if they are of any use.

I guess many aspies might long for something they don't get because they have difficulties making friends otherwise, so it's maybe something to increase trust and learn to know eachother by straight-forward activities like learning taekwon-do (just an example). Other stuff could be help with homework after school.

This is really impressive - I would have loved to have an autistic rights club in high school.

Not sure how much an ad costs to run in the USA, but there's other ways to get a video viewed outside of YouTube. If it's a clever or entertaining enough piece, you can send it out via viral email.

Another option would be to advertise on popular webcomic sites (i.e a static ad linking to the video on YouTube) - paid ads can go for as little as a dollar, and some artists might be sympathetic enough to write up a rant for free.

As far as the lunch event, a good idea would be to simply have a question and answer circle, if you were comfortable with it - I imagine plenty of people want to know about autism, but think it impolite to ask.

Hope that helps...

Actually, one of the Aspies who joined IS in my taekwondo class.

On the Club Rush day where people looked at the clubs there are, people from the Video Yearbook (which I presume is something like a video they're going to make that includes the different aspects of school life) asked me on camera to talk about my club. I was so nervous, as I didn't have much prepared to say and was caught off-guard, but I managed a few sentences to say about the concern about a prenatal test being used for purposes of eugenics, and how people need to be informed that autism isn't a disease to be eradicated.

I am so glad that my friend finally convinced me to do this. I'd toyed with the idea when I was a freshman, but back then I didn't have any idea of how to organize a group of people - let alone find something to say!

Yeah, I was thinking about talking as a group about things that we feel need to change, and to be able to be in an environment that's "autism-safe", where stimming and such won't be looked down upon. I also want to show some Youtube videos that are of interest, including a screening of the infamous "Autism Every Day".

Thanks for your input.

Wow, earthmonkey, I am so impressed by this.

I'm a member of your club!

I would love to join your club!

At my school, one of my friends just started a "gay/straight alliance" club. I wonder how it's going..

what kinds of activites do you do in your club?

if only there were more people with the courage to start such things, the world be be a much better place(i should probably do more my self come to think of it...)

I'm thinking about starting a aspie club at either my school or in my local area. It would be nice to meet normal people like me and get to know other aspies. Although i don't know how i should go about it. any suggestions? I'm going to speak to my head of year to find out how many other aspies are at my school, so far i don't know of anyone else but my school is fairly large (750pupils) and its hard to get into nowadays (i don't mean to be steriotypical but very clever people are more likely to be on the autistic spectrum) so i don't think i'm going to be the only person.

at school i've been talking to the special needs teacher about setting up an autism group at school and she and the head agree its a good idea, the only problem is the only 2 other diagnosed people at school have now left so i am the only one. but the special needs teacher is going to contact other schools in the area to help me form a group outside my school although nothing can happen until after january. i wish there were other autistic people at my school because its upsetting knowing i'm the only one especially since i had got my hopes up of getting to know people who would understand me properly.

[quote=Moo]
but my school is fairly large (750pupils)

HA! my class alone has about 800 people! the school has probably over 2000 students. And thats after they pulled the 9th grade out of the building.

How can 1 class have 800 people? i find that impossible to imagine. I go to a private school and now i'm in 6thform the very maximum for a lesson class is 15. My friend who is doing latin only has 1 other person in her class.

To follow on from what i was saying before about starting an autistic group at school, my special needs teacher has found a girl who is an aspie who goes to another school near me and my mum is now in contact with her mum., i'm going to meet her this saturday. Looking forward to saturday is helping me not let things at school upset me so much.

hmm, you can actually find that out? At my school, I asked the same question and the special ed teacher said that it was "classified information". Except for the fact that that there were a whole bunch of people who I knew because they were in this study that I was in at the Ucdavis MIND institute :rolleyes

True it is classified information so if there were some aspies i would not have been told who they were, but the teacher could tell them who i was because i requested it.

One of my teachers at school is an aspie, she teaches me biology, she is also head of biology at my school. What surprises me about her is that she has no idea that she is an aspie. My mum gave her information about it off the NAS site on parents evening about Asperger's as a hint but i don't think she has figured it out. I'm considering whether to tell her or not. She is not well liked, this is because she tends to insult people without realising and is completely unflexiable about rules even when she should be. I like her though, but thats because i'm probably one of the only people at the school that understands her behaviour. I find it amusing when she shouts at my ex for the same reasons i used to get angry with him. Heh.