In an industrial estate east of the Liverpool central business district in Western Sydney, lies a centre of ability and acceptance, of creativity and caring, of family and friendship. It is in this unassuming location you can find the Australian Dance and Drama Company. Led by the dynamic Debra Atkins, Australian Dance and Drama Co. offers a wide variety of performing arts and physical classes in dance, piano and gymnastics, just to name a few. The school caters to a broad range of students from all walks of life – children and adults. The school prides itself on its inclusive environment. The ..read more

In 2014, an Autistic-led and Autistic-run social group for the adult Autistic community in Sydney was established. The online platform Meetup was chosen to co-ordinate offline encounters and social activities for this sizable yet disperse community; a community whose needs and desires tend to be overlooked and undersupported. From humble beginnings, this group – known as the Autistic Adults Social Group (AASG) – has grown into a vital and important focal point for the community, with over one thousand members. Thanks to the support of AASG, new groups serving the adult Autistic community have ..read more

Following on from the success of last year’s Hackathon, we decided to stage a writing competition, whose theme was the Autistic experience. For our first ever edition of the Autistic Writing Competition, we decided to solicit entries from both Autistic and non-Autistic adults. This was a decision which proved to be somewhat controversial in some circles. After all, how could non-Autistic people possibly know what it is like to be Autistic? We would address their concerns in the form of an FAQ. Controversy notwithstanding, the response to our writing competition has been overwhelmingly positive ..read more

At this month’s meeting, we were privileged to have not one, but TWO very special guests! Our first guest was Matheus, a proud member of the Lions Clube Bauru Autismo, an Autism Lions Club that is based in the city of Bauru, in São Paulo State, Brazil. Matheus, who is a professional with two autistic sons, told us about some of the good works his club has done including raising funds for transporting local autistic children to therapy sessions. We wish Bauru Autismo every success in all their endeavours. The Autism Lions movement truly has become an unstoppable, worldwide phenomenon! We also h ..read more

This month at our meeting, we were honoured to have Grace Nixon, a Job Coach at auticon, an international information technology consultancy with an Australian presence, whose core team of professional technical consultants are all on the autism spectrum. Grace guided us through auticon’s approach to recruiting, hiring and providing ongoing support for their employees – a model which has proved to be successful for auticon, their consultants and for the companies that use their services. Grace also kindly and expertly answered our questions… and you can watch the entire presentation – includin ..read more

On the 2nd of April, the Lions District of Sydney conducted a Family Health and Wellbeing Forum at the Blacktown Workers Club, and – being the Autism Lions Club – we were invited to give a talk on autism. Other guest speakers were invited to talk about other topics such as Alzheimer’s disease, arthritis, and prostate cancer. If one were to take a moment to look at the lineup of topics being offered at the forum, they would notice that most of these are rather serious diseases and health conditions. When I was invited to represent my club at the Forum, I couldn’t help but feel that placing auti ..read more

Living on the flip side of a stereotype is an experience that is difficult to describe. While there are stereotypes about everything – white people can’t dance, lawyers lack a moral compass, dog lovers are more friendly than cat lovers – the most impactful ones are those about minority groups. I am part of multiple minority groups, and so I’ve been ‘lucky’ enough to face innumerable generalisations about who I am. Ever since I can remember, I’ve always tried to break every stereotype that applies to me to prove that I am different from all those expectations, ready to swing my metaphorical swo ..read more

The Autism Lions Movement in Australia continues to spread like wildfire with the addition of the fourth club in the Movement, the Northlakes Central Coast Lions Club! In keeping with the tradition that started in 2019 with Melbourne Autism’s charter night, followed by North Queensland ASD’s charter night in June this year, SACLC once again sent a representative – our president Tom – to join in on the festivities. Unlike the previous charter celebrations, which were conducted as evening dinners, Northlakes Central Coast opted to mark the occasion with a morning tea instead, which was held at ..read more

For our meeting this month, we were honoured to have as our guest, Vishal Sonule of Connektivity, a consultancy for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, or NDIS, that supports individuals and providers with their NDIS registration, as well as NDIS compliance needs! Vishal guided us through the process of applying for, and meeting, NDIS access requirements and fielded questions that our appreciative audience had. For example, did you know that the NDIS is available to people between the ages of 7 and 65? Also, did you know that if you’re on the NDIS, you are better off in the long run gett ..read more

The Autism Lions Movement in Australia continues unabated with the addition of the third club in the Movement, the North Queensland ASD Lions Club! As with Melbourne Autism’s charter night, it was only proper that we showed our support for this equally momentous occasion, so once again, we sent our president Tom up north to transplendent Townsville to join in on the festivities. NQASD’s Charter Dinner was held at the Lions Den of their sponsoring Lions Club, Townsville Castle Hill, which is a dedicated club facility that only a handful of Lions Clubs worldwide are fortunate enough to have, an ..read more