As he had already done in Australia in May 2024, our autistic friend Stephen M. Shore proudly represented Autistan at the Second Conference on Comprehensive Education ‘Voices of Individuals with Disabilities’, held at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Mysuru Campus – India, from July 25 to 27, 2024.
This bi-annual conference is a joint effort with faculty members from the College of Education and Health Sciences at Adelphi University (New York), where Stephen is a Professor of Special Education.
The Autistan T-shirt he is wearing is an example of collaboration.
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The words in Hindi at the top mean “Autistan” / “The Autistic World,” as Stephen explained to us that “The Autistic World” is preferable to “The World of Autistic People”.
He is right because it is simpler and more faithful to the concept (which is not the idea of a ‘world that belongs to autistic people’ but rather the world of autism).-
(In Hindi, there are many ways to translate “World”, and we chose the word “Vishwa,” as explained in this article.)
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Stephen suggested using a variation of the Autistan flag to better highlight the Autistan Disk on the T-shirt, explaining that it is the most significant component.
Once again, he was right, so much so that we now use this new logo on other occasions (in addition to the Autistan flag, which of course does not change).
Stephen Mark Shore is a very famous autistic professor (perhaps the most famous autistic person in the world after Temple Grandin).
He loves and supports the concept of Autistan (as you can see in this photo), and for several years already he has kindly and spontaneously agreed to be Autistan Ambassador for the State of New York in the United States.
Stephen is a great traveler, as our other friend and support Josef Schovanec.
Besides, they wrote a book together (Josef translated and adapted Stephen’s book: “Understanding Autism for Dummies”).
What we do is holistic, global and coherent:
- See the participations and declarations of Josef Schovanec in relation to Autistan
- See our recent meeting with the Vice-Ambassador of India in Brasilia
- See our explanation on the choice of “Autistic Vishwa” in Hindi to translate “Autistic World”
- See Stephen Shore in Australia (INSAR Conference, Melbourne, 15-18/05/2024)
- See our recent Full review of Australia’s National Autism Strategy
- See our recent participation au C20 (G20) to Rio de Janeiro, where this pretty badge (thanks to Stephen) has been used
All these things allow us to move forward little by little, in the hope that one day the relevant public bodies will finally understand that our concept is not only “a cool idea with a nice flag”, but above all a very useful resource to truly understand the difficulties and needs of autistic people, in order to improve or create the necessary and truly appropriate public policies, thanks to all the explanations, details, nuances and real examples we can provide.