Journeys to health

Summer of Fun and Funding for Autonomy

It seems rather strange, that when other groups are struggling with funding, and even though there is a recession on, Autonomy has had its best year of publicity and funding for our group and its activities, and of course it all started with the Pitch your Project prize-winning award last September, which really set the ball rolling. We also know that is takes time and patience, and a lot of letters and form filling! But the paperwork pays off in the end.

This summer, we put on Autonomy Fusion, our exhibition of the artistic work of young people and adults with Asperger’s syndrome. The exhibition was held at the Hive Gallery, in Shrewsbury, and later at the Shropshire Autism Conference. To cover the costs of the exhibition we applied for a Shropshire Arts Grant, and were successful. The artists have had their expenses paid, and also have been paid as artists. This has really helped to inspire and motivate them. We were also successful at getting a Mid Counties Cooperative Community Grant towards some display boards, which we can use for our publicity or in other exhibitions.

We got some publicity too when we received a phone call from the Rotary Club who had received a letter from us over a year ago. They appeared at one of our socials to present a cheque, and we featured in the local paper. The cheque paid for our summer outing on the Sabrina river boat on the River Severn last Sunday afternoon.

Autonomy is growing from strength to strength. A grant from the European Social Fund is helping to pay towards our Inspire! mentoring project for new members. It is also paying for Motivate! a series of self esteem boosting courses to be run for our members run by a qualified life coach. This is a new venture for our group and will definitely inspire our members to live more positive lives.


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