Our History

 

For a long time, Autism has been a condition thought to affect mainly males, often referred to as the extreme male brain. Due to this female's and those who do not fit within society's rigid definitions of gender are still overlooked ignored and under-represented in research and at a policy level.

 

It is now recognised that Autism presents somewhat differently in girls and women.and is estimated that there could be between 140,000 and 240,000 women with undiagnosed Autism in the UK alone.

 

The Autistic Women's Empowerment Project was originally born out of frustration 

 

Following a diagnosis of an Autism Spectrum condition with chronic and severe sensory processing disorder in Jan 2014.  Our founder Willow reached out for support and found there was none.

 

The Awe Project was formed to raise awareness of the female presentation of autism and the difficulties autistic women and girls face accessing support.  Our initial aim was just to raise awareness of the needs of autistic women and girls. but we soon became aware that much more than awareness was needed. The failure to recognise the needs of autistic women and girls was not just poor practice, it was an equality issue.

 

Willow is passionate about equality and diversity, autism and Its recognition in females and campaigning for better provision of adequate services for adults on the spectrum. After connecting with other women in her situation she began to realise how little support was available for all autistic adults across the UK.

 

In June 2015, the project was launched at The Autism Show, London which was made possible through the kind sponsorship of Autism Life Dogs. This was an amazing achievement for Willow as at the time anxiety and sensory difficulties still overwhelmed her. She was struggling with co-occurring physical health conditions and was socially isolated. However the passion and drive to change the way autistic women and girls were treated pushed her to overcome her fears and push herself way out of her comfort zone. She listened to many parents and to the challenges they were facing and from then she knew she had to do something, she had no idea what or how just something.

 

Later that year Willow was included in a global project to celebrate Autistic Pride Day organised by Mind of Her Own, A Youtube video was created to tell the world that females can be autistic too and we are proud of who we are.

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Willow then began connecting with other women across the Autistic community and it became clear just how many difficulties faced by females their needs were not even been recognised.

 

Following communications with other autistic women and the mothers of autistic girls, it was decided that far more support was needed and we began the task of developing a website containing useful information with links to further support we also started a closed online group and started developing a social media platform

 

The AWE Project has been developed with zero funds with the support of some techy friends and websites for dummies book and many new skills have been learnt along the way.

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