Advocate for Inclusion and Neurodiversity

Preamble International Women's Day (IWD) has gotten a lot of attention this year (2021) in Singapore. In fact,  The Ministry of Social and Family Development has dedicated 2021 as the Year of Celebrating SG Women . As a believer of Equality, Inclusion, and Fairness for all, I find this inspiring. More importantly, I find many fundamental principles/values and attitudes on which this concept of gender diversity operates upon, which I feel can be emulated and applied to disability inclusion , including Autism Awareness Day   coming up next month (April). 2nd April was declared as Autism Awareness Day by the United Nations General Assembly A bit of History 8th March is International Women's Day (IWD) . Officially recognised by the  United Nations  since  1977 , today it is celebrated by many countries globally. The Women’s Rights Movement  dates all the back to 1848. Readers keen to read more history may refer to the links appended below in the Appendix...

A note from the Poet, Wesley Loh: This Poem is dedicated to my beloved autism community. I intend to capture/express some of things we go through inside us.  To our non-speaking autistics counterparts: We feel your pain of the misconceptions people have of you. It is tough living in a world where your way of communication is different from the mainstream.  This poems also seeks to be a voice for you to some extent (especially the 2nd segment), debunking common myths of non-speaking autistics and helping the world understand the inner thoughts and feelings that are going on inside you that you otherwise don't vocalise.  Given that I am a speaking autistic, I don't think my poem does justice to fully represent you and your thoughts, but do know I tried my best and that we are all a part of each other as fellow autistics from the same beloved community. The Neurodiversity Movement need not divide us, on the contrary, it unites us! Title: I May Not Look At You But I am Listen...

https://youtu.be/kT0eqy-_s7A Materials manufactured from a factory go through standard Quality checks (QCs) to discriminate between the good quality ones and the bad, the "pass" and "fail" ones. But humans are not factory produced homogeneous products. Humans are more DIVERSE than we imagine. Yet we are all put through similar tests to discriminate between the "pass" and "fail", the "normal" and the "inferior", where "normal" parameters are set by what is the majority, the average, and the rest are somehow deemed inferior. In the context of the Neurodivergent (including but not limited to autistics, ADHD, Dsylexia, and those labelled to have Learning Disabilities ), we are, by the "standards of normal" (whatever that may be), deemed inferior to others, just because we behave differently, think differently, socialise differently (or have trouble socialising or don't socialise). Those who lack a...