We are Heroes: A Plain Language Guide about Corovid-19 was written by autistics, for autistics, (A4A) in Toronto, Ontario. A4A Ontario is a collective of autistic adults, and an international affiliate of Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN). I ran across it on The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, and a full PDF of the guide is available on their blog at A4A Ontario. I encourage everyone to download and read it. Here’s a preview:
Why are these things happening? Why are we making all these changes? Because we are heroes. We are all saving people’s lives, by protecting each other from the coronavirus, Covid-19. These changes are not forever. It is just for now. Things will get back to normal again.
It goes on to explain what Covid-19 is, why we are staying home, up and down feelings about staying home, AAC resources, keeping connected, and taking a break from Covid talk.
The guide, written 100% by autistic people, closes with these words of wisdom and hope:
What’s next?
The doctors and scientists will tell us when it is safe to start opening up schools, restaurants and other places. They don’t know yet, but they will be keeping us updated.
When it is safe, we will all slowly go back to doing our favourite things that are not at home. Then we will look back on this and remember it, as something from the past.
We are in this together
We are all working together, being heroes together. We are protecting ourselves and the people we love-and people all across Ontario. Thank you for being a hero.
I would like to add my gratitude. Thank you for making difficult changes to your routine. My family is one of the vulnerable ones; each of us has multiple risk factors which make it imperative that we avoid contact and shelter at home for the duration. When you who are young, healthy and strong also stay home, you are protecting us and others like us. Many will live because you made this sacrifice.
Thank you,
stay-at-home superheroes,
for making the world
a safer place!