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Stitch here, one of the canine members of the ASANimals. The cats had their say in our last Giving Tuesday email, but this time it’s my turn! All the humans at ASAN have been hard at work this year, and this month is your chance to support them. November 28th is #GivingTuesday, a day of giving where nonprofits of all sizes ask folks to donate and support their causes as a part of the paw-liday season. This year, the staff at ASAN have handed off some of their Giving Tuesday duties to the ASANimals — the pets here at ASAN! ASAN is a small organization with the big mission of empowering autistic people throughout the country. We’re excited to take some of their work, if only so they can spend more time with us. Your support last #GivingTuesday and all through this year helped ASAN keep working on the issues that matter to autistic people no matter what came up. Part of that work is making sure that autistic people’s voices are heard, especially on issues that affect their lives and futures, like autism research. Your support over the past year matters so much to the folks at ASAN, and while our people are busy, we want to share what the work they’ve done this year around research — and what to look forward to in 2024. This year, ASAN has done a lot of work getting autistic people involved in research, making their priorities heard, and so much more. Autistic people need more research that actually helps them live their lives — and that means including all autistic people in conversations around research priorities and funding. Most autism research focuses on trying to find out what causes autism, in order to prevent or “cure” it, even though this is not research that autistic people want. It doesn’t help autistic people that are here now! More money needs to be given to research that helps autistic people. This year, our humans have made sure autistic people have a chance to make their voices heard on things like health care, communication, and so much more. It’s important that people know how to share what research matters to them, and the people at ASAN make sure there are different ways for people to learn. This year, ASAN also partnered with PAC at Drexel University to make a new opportunity for autistic people to talk about research that matters to them — including the parts that are missing! Together, they planned the Autism Research for Us symposium. They wanted to make a research agenda that included the priorities of the autistic community, instead of the priorities of non-autistic researchers or parents, so they invited autistic self-advocates, autistic researchers, non-autistic researchers and other key stakeholders to a brand new symposium! At the ARFU (arf, arf to you too!) symposium, they talked about all kinds of things around research, but especially what they wanted the future to look like. The work from that symposium is still going on, and it will be exciting to see everything that comes from it in 2024! No matter how ruff the year ahead, the people at ASAN will continue their work, and that is only possible thanks to the support of donors who enable them to fight for all autistic people to be included and heard. This year, consider making a #GivingTuesday donation to ASAN to help empower self-advocacy and the autistic community. Save the date and join them tomorrow, November 28th—and know that all of the ASAN pets will be there too! We’re so grateful for your support and for your spirit of giving to the people we love. Their work is only paws-ible thanks to your support! Very many pets,
Autistic Self Advocacy Network PO Box 66122
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