Magical Week!
We celebrated Autism Awareness Week in Romford's Liberty Centre last week and it was a great success. We even had a visit from a real-life wizard!
Our magical friend was just one of many visitors to our area throughout the week, as we created a lot of awareness, answered a lot of questions, raised some money and had a lot of fun!
Robert, Cheryl and our wand-erful visitor!
Our Autism Awareness Week began with a flag raising at Barking Town Hall on Monday morning and our sponsored walk & talk from Romford to Dagenham and back. From Tuesday morning, our focus switched to the Liberty Centre as we took up our occupation of the central square, next to Beaverbrooks, River Island and Krispy Kreme.
We set up our mini funfair, with our spectacular balloon arch, lots of games and challenges, and a sensory tent as well as lots of leaflets and information about the services we provide to the residents of Havering, Redbridge and Barking & Dagenham.
We had a number of visitors throughout the week, including our friends Nikki and Nana from the B&D Progress Project, former Gladiator and local celebrity Weininger Irwin and our former staff member Matt Dyde, on his way to see the Hammers on Sunday! Naturally, ouyr own local celebrity, Robert Lamb, had his photo taken with all of them!
Robert met 1992 TV Gladiators champions Weininger Irwin, who recently completed a 24 hour rowing challenge in the Liberty Centre for charity
Pictures aside, the main focus of the week was raising awareness and acceptance of Autism, as well as promoting the products and services provided by Sycamore Trust UK. We rattled the buckets throughout the week and managed to raise a few pounds as well.
There are so many people we need to thank, it's almost impossible to name everyone but special thanks must go to the Liberty Centre for their help and all our staff for volunteering throughout the week. We were also indebted to a number of our Autism Ambassadors who came along to help out and enjoyed the experience.
Next job - start planning next year's activities!
Emma and Jemma (& Batman!) got into the spirit of Dare to be Different day