Did you know that April is Autism Awareness Month? On April 8th, ND Empowerment and International Buddy teamed up to spread awareness about neurodiversity for Autism Awareness Month. Over 20 volunteers for ND Empowerment and International Buddy (an organization that supports autistic children) went to the Quad at University of Washington (UW) during cherry blossom blooming season at UW. One team of volunteers manned a stand, while the other passed out flyers to passers walking by. The volunteers passed out over 400 flyers and had positive interactions with neurodivergent individuals thanking them for their work.
“Overall the event was a great success. Through the event, we were able to interact with neurodivergent individuals and hearing how appreciative they were regarding our services was truly inspiring. There were people with neurodiversity, knew people with it, or worked and interacted with neurodivergent people on a day to day basis who were thankful for our services and intrigued in our event. We were able to learn more about things to improve on and change and can use this to better enhance our services and better provide for the community. ” says Nathan Guan, the president and founder of ND Empowerment. He continues, “My goal for the future is to be able to make every single neurodivergent individual feel included into the community and comfortable enough to speak out about their wants and needs. ”
ND Empowerment is hopeful about the future of their organization and cannot wait for future events to be able to reach out to new people and be able to expand this community and spread awareness towards others.
ND Empowerment is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in the state of Washington dedicated to preparing neurodiverse individuals for careers through integrated career-technical education (CTE). With unemployment rates for individuals with autism (ASD) being approximately 85%, ND Empowerment’s mission is to tap into the unique strengths, passions, and abilities of neurodiverse individuals to enable them to join the workforce.