Event: Stigmatization of Autism in Society

Details

STIGMATIZATION OF AUTISM IN SOCIETY : REDEFINING AUTISM AS A DISABILITY‘ was organized on 12th April 2021 on Facebook Live by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Club UTM. Our club made this program to raise awareness on Autism as April is Autism Awareness Month. 

The objective of this program is to expose audience to identify the areas of impairmentassociated with autism spectrum disorders and to identify the learning characteristics of people with autism. Next, audience should also be able to identify myths associated with autism and respond to those myths with facts learned from presentation. Lastly, participants will have a different view on people with Autism as not just someone with a disability.

The speaker chosen for the event is Dr George Clerk, a lecturer of criminology at the University of Buckinghamshire New University United Kingdom. Dr George was chosen for this event due to his appropriate qualifications on the subject matter i.e PHD in Sociology at University of Sheffield. His focus field are mental capacity, child abuse, social care and criminology.

The event starts by an introduction to Autism, its definition and its historical background. Next, the speaker explained about the levels of disability and its signs and symptoms. Later on, the speaker went into some social science aspect on the subject matter; advocacy and social model. On the last part of the event, the speaker explained about some of the stigma of society on Autism; its causes and some research data on the stigma

Reflection

There were two main focuses when I planned for this program. Firstly, I would like to address to society/audience, the usual STIGMATIZATION and MYTHS we have towards people with Autism, whether they are true or not. Secondly, I would like to REDEFINE the way people think of people with Autism as not just someone with a disability. Therefore, that is how I came up with the title of the event. This event was supposed to be organized on 2nd of April, which is the real, World Autism Awareness Day. However, the event had to be postponed to 12th April as the original date clashed with many assessments.

The justification when I made this event, is because I am also the secretary for this club. Which means, as a high committee I had enough knowledge and resources to make a program. It would be a waste to miss the opportunity to organize a program as I could learn a lot.

This is my first time organizing an event. Therefore, there were a lot of things that worried me. For example, I was worried about how to properly invite an external speaker, and the formality. Not only that, I was also scared if the program failed, and I would make a bad image of UTM. However, I do think this is a normal feeling in organizing any event.

There were a lot of shortcomings during the program. I learned where to improve the next time I make an event. This event not only taught me about event planning, but also leadership skills to ensure success of the program.

I would like to thank Dr George Clerk and Dr Francis Kwaku Kuma for their collaboration in this program. I would like to also thank my team that contributed to the success of the program. I hope that your experience working in this program under my leadership will help you in your future endeavour, especially skills that require leadership/management.

Akmal Hakim, Program Director