Developing Adventure With Autism

After the last couple of months being ill I am suddenly realising that Easter is here and I have fallen behind on many things!

It has not been an entirely idle period as I have managed to wade through the foggy brain and have started looking into the possibility of making travel opportunities available for children and adults with ASD.

As some may know, I put out a survey not too long a go asking specific questions to understand views towards travel in the autism community.

I am pleased to say that 100% of respondents agreed that this type of opportunity should be available for those on the spectrum.   I also received a lot of helpful feed back on what type of journeys people would consider, an insight into support needs and people’s general availability.  Thank you to everyone who responded.

I also received lots of feed back raising concerns about needs being met and flexibility to meet those needs, as well as direct responses saying ‘not my child’ or ‘not for me’.  Again, thank you to everyone who took the time to respond and discuss further towards helping me understand.

All in all though, it was a positive exercise and I have reflected on how to move forward with the idea and have decided the following:

• To move ahead slowly – yes I would like to pursue this concept, however, to start with small adventures in the UK for level 1 and 2 ASD initially before making opportunities available for level 3 ASD (please see note (i) below).  If you are a parent/carer or an adult with ASD and you are interested, please use the contact form in the menu above and let me know.
• To raise awareness for the benefits of travel within the autism community whilst at the same time for me to gain a better understanding of how best this service can meet needs.
• I will pursue grants and funding applications in the medium term, however, I want to start putting greater focus on fundraising and PR this year.  Any help in this would be greatly appreciated!
• Again in the medium term, I will look into setting up a subscription quarterly specifically on the subject of adventure, travel and overcoming challenges with disabilities as well as the carers who support these inspiring feats.  The current title for this quarterly is ‘The Big Challenge’.  If you have a story of overcoming challenges with a disability, I would love to hear from you.
• ‘The Book’ on our adventure through Africa will obviously play into all of this.  I am chipping away at it, however, I still haven’t successfully pulled apart the 3 stories (Sofia, myself and the motorbike) to make a single narrative that is readable.  As I have also mentioned about a year ago, there is a second book that will be a Fantasy abstract of Sofia’s journey which both Sofia and I are working on, but remains a lower priority and will be many years in the making (it will be really good though!)

In the long-term, I have big ideas for AWA and what we can do for people with ASD but first one has to learn to walk before they can run!

Thank you for your continued support.

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Notes:

(i)  Levels one, two and three is a needs based system to determine the support needs of the individual where levels are clearly defined and we can use this as a guide in understanding needs and capabilities. People may be more familiar with high, medium and low functioning as descriptors of ability level and therefore support needs.

 

Working Behind the Scenes

I have been quiet for the last few months as I ferreted away on setting up a new blog (current affairs, political, common sense, non PC – The Hungry Rabbit)  that will hopefully sustain us in the future for more adventure travel to raise awareness for autism.   I have almost finished with the initial setting up, and my focus is now returning to our next travel project – Europe.

Having decided that Europe was the next destination in the new year, I then had the thought that perhaps we should make it a bigger challenge and instead of a motorbike, that we should try a tandem bicycle.  A really great idea and challenge to be done, but I have realised that now is not the time.  Sofia is not ready to make that type of journey, coupled with the fact that at this point I think cultures will be a better learning for her than working through a physical punishment – and a physical punishment it would certainly be!

So we remain on the motorbike for this journey and will cover approximately 1000 miles a week, hoping to camp the entire way (peek season availability allowing) and taking in as much of the various cultures of Europe as possible.

As I think about this journey and I start to plan, I can feel that there will in fact be an enormous challenge in it for both of us and I wonder how I thought that it might not be enough!  Not only will we dealing with many different languages yet never staying long enough to really get to grips with them, but cities will most likely become a major feature of our travels.  This will present a challenge for me driving as I don’t like cities and have a propensity to get lost (yes really!  if it wasn’t for basic navigation knowledge of North and South we may have ended up in the Arctic in stead of Africa!), but also Sofia, who will now have an opportunity to develop her map reading skills, and her camping skills, both of which she was only just starting to get to grips with on our journey through Africa.

The Plan of Action:

We do our first event of the season next week at the MCN Show at the Excel in London (17th-19th) where we will hopefully pick up some kit sponsors for the trip and sell our T-shirts and stickers.  Expect a blog post, as this will be first time for me driving with a trailer and no doubt I will find myself in a pickle somewhere in London!

Start detailed planning – border controls for Ukraine and Russia; peg the definite destinations with time scales and sections where we can go off the beaten track.  Ensure that I have Ural knowledge bases fully mapped on the route as well!

Start planning kit – we will have to halve what we took with us to Africa, partly because Sofia has grown and partly because in hindsight I think the Zambian bikers were right, we were too heavy in Africa.  With Sofia also being older now, it may be easier to achieve this as well as I will feel less need as a mother to horde food and clothing!

Fundraising – This year I have set up an account on Patreon so that supporters can subscribe $1 per month (or more if they so choose).    Through this I hope that we achieve a regular support base upon which we can plan future events as well as start creating grants for other children with Autism and Autism organisations.  Please visit us on Patreon and become a patron now – https://www.patreon.com/AfricaWithAutism

Recording the event – This time I will be investing more time into planning the video recording and picture taking and hopefully get Sofia involved in the effort.   It was my biggest regret in Africa that I hadn’t had time to do this before hand and made more of that aspect of the journey.  So in Europe, I plan to make up for it.    I have also found a great app for turning speech to text and will make an effort to create book as we go.   I am currently using this for the book about the Africa journey, but sadly with so many other things on my plate it is not happening at the speed I would like!

Thank you for you continued support!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leaving as Soon as Possible After the 10th November!

Sometimes a fixed date is not what the universe wants, and certainly in our case, leaving on our journey, it is unlikely we are going to know what actual day we leave, possibly until we have left!  What I can say is that we need to be in Africa by Christmas so we can avoid the rains in northern Kenya.

Sofia at Brightona – The bike meet on Brighton sea front

Reasons for the leaving date has become fluid is multiple, and trying to force any of them to comply to a fixed dated feels wrong as they all have their own time to develop.

The first reason to present itself was my riding skills.  Granted, I’ve not see much of the bike over the summer with it being in an out of the workshop all summer and one mechanic holding it for a month for now reason too boot.  Now finally it is stablised! yay!

Out Training with Mick of MPC Ural Motorcycles

This has seen a number of forays into the world of off road, both with and without experienced back up, and I’m pleased to announce that not only have I clearly returned alive, but as a result my confidence and skill has been improving.  My most recent story I posted on our Facebook page – Africa With Autism.  For me what is important (because the expectation to ride like I have 20 yrs experience is not my agenda) is that I am able to work through situations on the road that might occur.  I feel now that I will be able to do that.  The fear and panic has now given way to a proactive approach to problems.  I’m still learning though, as you can see from the post!

Out training with Dave (retired) in the Devils Punch Bowl, Hindhead

Another aspect to the date is Sofia’s school application process for September 2016.  Sofia in now in her transition year, which is effectively her final year of Junior school.  As she has special educational needs, there is a process by which senior schools are applied for.   One of the reasons this trip is possible is that it fits nicely within the process within the process.  We do however, need to ensure that all the paperwork has been done before we leave.  This is something we can’t put a date on as yet especially as the school we are choosing needs to finish its assessment process.

Finally, and perhaps the biggest show stopper of them all is the finances!  We are otherwise ready to go.  We have nearly all the kit, The bike is almost ready, and will make its final trip for tyres and modifications etc next week.  Financially though, we need a lot of money to get this project on the road.  Yes, believe it or not, it is the paper work that costs the most, and there is a lot of paper work that needs to be completed. It is the single biggest reason why many who would love to travel overland, don’t.   So now the project becomes a challenge to win hearts and minds for autism, and help create an amazing story with which to raise funds for autism for years to come.

Please donate to our Charity Foundation – Africa With Autism

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