As a part of the Community stage of our City Leaders project we invited people to share personal experiences; focussing as much as possible on positive experiences in order to contribute to wider awareness raising in the community. Below, you can find excerpts from our participants' responses.
If you would like to submit anything from your own experience, please send it to info@autus.org.uk. We do not require nor will we publish a name, but just to know your age and gender is very helpful.
A. (25, M)
One of the best things this year for me was assisting with and presenting at many locations around the London boroughs. A notable example being at Elephant and Castle where the other presenters also had interesting topics and projects to talk about. ...
Something I have learned from this role is general business skills, for example: Learning how to use and manage Google Drive, its related calendar and I have learned about creating invoices and putting this knowledge into practice for the first time. I have also been given more responsibility ... I was tasked with saving the chat log after every session and uploading it to the Google Drive alongside screenshots of the day's session. I have gained more leadership skills as I had to lead a couple of sessions ...
B. (38, M)
... positive attributes are that my home life has always been forward-thinking ... During my post-school years I tried hard to move into a bigger city and expand my life ...
My school life should have been a little better as nobody who knew me knew there was such a thing as Asperger's syndrome at the time but to be positive, looking back at school life, every pupil always has plenty of opportunities to teach all teachers what they can do.
D. (28, M)
... would like to say that my time with AUTUS has given me more self-belief and confidence within the world of work. The course also has taught me valuable lessons about self-employment, and shown me how to set up and start running my own small business. It has also given me some valuable lessons in management and organisation, and some ideas that I can use to get a paid job or start my own small business in the future. It has also given me a new interest in art and photography, and I thank AUTUS for giving me inspiration and ideas to hopefully set up my art gallery and collection in future. It has also given me valuable life and work experience, which should help me to find a decent paid job, and some new IT skills which I can put to good use in my future career.
D. (mid-20's, M)
... because my mum found me a primary school that was loads better I started getting my confidence back and the special secondary I went to helped a lot with that too. Doing work experience at the radio station has helped me a lot too. So yes, ... I have changed a lot for the better. I enjoy my jobs working in schools too.
S. (25, M)
... I managed to get a three jobs in sales (commission) but I kept on being anxious and forgetting what to say, not making any sales at all, etc. I left it in the end.
I joined Thames Reach program called TRAVEL which prepared people for voluntary work. From there I identified part about myself and took up a drumming course at Morley college and joined the public acts (where I am taking part in a summer drama project)
The team stage of our project explored some of the psyche of Autism from personal perspectives. We felt that these visual insights were very valuable, and the team went on to publish the comic Journey (which you can view here or by clicking on the picture above).
Our participatin in City Leaders was made possible by London Youth.
