 Welcome to The Advocate on Plus TV Africa, where your panellists discuss thought-provoking topics in an atmosphere of seriousness, decisiveness and laughter. Here we call a spade a spade, and like we say here, no holds barred. All the panellists today are in one voice on the inclusion of special needs children in all spheres of life. I am calling for inclusion in the service sectors. Sholakpe breaks down what autism means and the need for inclusion noting that it starts from our homes. Ezia Fakaku speaks on the right to effective intervention. Doin Sholak is calling for inclusion in the classrooms and workplaces, and Zuzi points out the signs to look out for in your child. So sit back and after this break we'll be here to dissect it all. Stay with us. Autism, awareness, month. Inclusion and the service sector. Normal children as they develop get to enjoy certain things like traveling, parties, playgrounds, going to the cinema and to restaurants. Most of us don't think twice about this until we either have a child with special needs or are confronted by a situation involving a person with special needs. Let me remind you at this point that autism spectrum disorder, ASD is a hidden disability making it harder for people to identify that a person has this condition. The social aspect of community is extremely important when raising a family and for the general well-being of its members. Allow me to explain further with two examples. Firstly, some children have never had the chance to experience going to the movies because of their diagnosis, something many of us take for granted. The typical cinema environment can be stressful for children with sensory difficulties or learning impairments. On top of that, other moviegoers tend to be unsympathetic due to ignorance or lack of understanding and as a result, the experience can leave the child with special needs and their family traumatised. My second example, I recently travelled out of the country without my children. At the airport, we were taken through the check-in and immigration process by a protocol officer. Even with that, the process was tedious and long. I imagined my usual no protocol travel situation and that of other special needs families in this COVID era. Just thinking about it made me anxious as I could imagine the sensory overload and the inevitable meltdown as well as the stares and ungracious comments of other travellers. Those are just two scenarios. Now viewer, think of a social setting you go to with your family and imagine if one of your children has ASD or some other challenge that makes going out and social settings as they currently are difficult. Is the answer to just keep them at home, don't include them at all, even if you know they enjoy such activities? What if I told you there are tangible steps that the service industry can take to be inclusive? It is my opinion that the service sector must be part of the change and awareness building we talk about often on this show. So what can be done? Let's take the scenarios I just gave. Cinema going. Well, I have actually put in a proposal to a large cinema chain in regards to sensory sensitive screenings to include and introduce people with ASD and sensory issues to the cinema going experience. This would include temporary adaptation of the environment and training of staff members to understand and welcome people of different needs. Easy. As for travel, Nigeria can become part of a global program started in the UK called the Hidden Disability Sunflower Program. I use it with my daughter when travelling from the UK. Our family wears a sunflower lanyard which discreetly indicates to people around the wearer including staff, colleagues and health professionals that they need additional support, help or just a little more time. This means without having to explain ourselves to every person, staff can discreetly help and attend to us without disrupting other passengers and without traumatising my child with additional needs or her neurotypical sibling. Airline staff, for example, are also given some awareness training to be able to assist passengers with hidden disabilities. Of course, you know me, I've also put in this proposal as well to the relevant bodies. I could give other scenarios like popular indoor and outdoor play centres, popular restaurant chains and more. The key is that the service sector cannot be left out of the change and must be implored to do more to serve all members of the community in which they operate. So ladies, what do you think? There's a lot of sighing. It's great that you went first. Yes, okay. So now we're motivated, better motivated. So what? Better prepared. Yes, so you know a lot of the times when we enter these kind of conversation, there's always a kickback, there's always resistance. But I know that my child hasn't been diagnosed with autism, but the cinema going experience is hard. Why are people so slow to pick this up? Awareness and knowledge, simple. When in an environment where we don't speak much, you may speak as a parent, I may speak as a parent and service provider, all of us here. But if a circle remains small, then it's not really, yes, it starts small, but if it remains small, there's not a lot of people I know to put them to it. So I think it's all about speaking out some more. Those people that are in this situation, speaking out and not just thinking it's my problem, I can deal with it. I maintain that if somebody doesn't know how to help you, they're not going to be able to support you. Shouldn't there be something that's literally, I don't want to say forces, but let's just say forces, forces you as a business to cater to all members? I think that in addition to what everyone has said, two critical things that affect the changes, what we want is one. You find that in our environment, we resist change very, very often. And it is usually as a result of lack of creativity. Because what happens is almost everything we have around us is the total replication of another person's idea. So when you bring in that part, asking for me to change a part of it, that means that I'm going to get totally thrown out of my comfort zone. And because I don't have what it takes to, because I didn't conceive it in the first place, and I didn't take the time to learn about what exactly the structure is about, I'm going to find it difficult to adapt or to adjust if anything moved out of place. So that, I find, is one of the things that affects the development that we need. That's why you find that when you put something forward, you don't usually get a response on time, except you go on and on and on about it, or you start to show them how to go about it, because usually we can't conceive it. So it's a very form of linear thinking. Why is I agree with that? I would also say the person you copied, like the nation or wherever you copied, they've gone ahead and moved forward. So why can't we still go back and copy? Okay, the other day I went to a children's play center, a very large children's play center in Lekif, Lekif is one. As I walked in with my kids, I saw this little boy, he taught like flapping his hands and screaming. I knew exactly what was going on. He was not with, he was with a nanny, the person he was with was a nanny, and I said, okay, I went to meet her, where's the child's mom. And she said, oh, she went out of, I said, you know what? See, I mean, well, I'm not a dangerous person. Let's take this child outside. This place is a bit too, too much for this child. And she was looking at me, I said, my kids are here. So let's take this child outside. Then the mom came in, I said, this your son, take him into the car right now. Let him be in a quiet place and let him just get over this meltdown. This is what is going on with him. And she said, eh, she didn't know, she didn't know, she just said, he does this. I don't know what to do again. I don't know what to give to him. And I didn't want to see, it seemed like I was marketing anything. I just, I just gave her the awareness. I told her, okay, this is what you need to know. And this is where you access the school, ask questions. And I went my way. Much later, I saw the boy playing and I was really happy, like, okay, I'm fulfilled. But it just serves a purpose to say, you know, it's not just the parents that have to do this. It's we, and we put a lot of emphasis on government. We put a lot of emphasis on schools. But the service sector is completely left out of this conversation. And it's really important because they touch the families every day. So if we can get them involved, it helps in the general awareness and advocacy for autism and other special needs. And I agree with what you're saying. And that's what I started with saying, there's no way I go to, as I'm going there before I leave. I must make sure that you know about what this is. Because at the end of the day, what you've done is you've educated that space. Because you cannot say you want to take it directly and say, I'm going to knock on all of these doors and tell them about this. In fact, you come to one street you see two, come next to you see four. And even the two that you saw before, they changed their people. They've changed management. So in your mind, you know, but if you do it as you move, you educate as you move, you touch more. And I feel like the gospel of the message you're trying to pass would move faster that way. I guess, I guess another question we should be asking ourselves, what is the government's responsibility in all of all these? Are there not things that should be put in place like, okay, if you are to set up a school, for example, and you say you are an inclusive school, are there no rules that governs or guides your setting of the school operations, you know? So what are we going to do? I don't like going into the government part of the conversation. We will leave that for another conversation. That's another complete episode. Shalakbe is coming up right after this break.