Help 400 Children/Teens with Autism in Venezuela

Venezuela is currently undergoing one of the direst macro-economic challenges in the world: over 500% year-on-year inflation (equivalent to more than the annual US inflation every day), major disruptions in food and public services supply, nation-wide energy crisis, and the highest violent mortality rate of any country in the world; As you can imagine, many families, including the ones we serve, struggle to met their basic daily needs.

While most private schools in the country have been forced to increase as of January 2016 their tuition and fees in light of the significant challenge our country is facing, we have decided to maintain this school year (i.e. 2015-2016) our current fee structure and support our families. We decided that we just can’t add to our families’ struggle; we cannot allow our kids to leave school because of financial reasons and/or not have access to the assessment they need. We must support them, and the autism community, by ensuring we keep providing access to the assessment services and education they deserve, while maintaining the educational level and impact we are known for.

In this context, we continue to be highly committed to the autism cause in Venezuela; to ensure we keep providing a specialized autism assessment and education solution to our children/teens in need. This school year we are making improvements in our assessment process, we are developing our digital induction training, we continue our staff coaching program, we have strengthened our technical department with the hiring of two specialized psychologists, and we continue improving our progress review and intervention process. The financial support we provide to all students in our specialized education program went from 31% last year to 44% this school year, and we continue to provide full and partial scholarships for as many as 60% of our population (up from 50% last year).

As you can imagine, this is only possible with the support of our donor community. We believe each skill a person with autism develops is a major step towards independence, integration and our best contribution to his/her well-being.  The smiles and relief of the parents, and the progress of our children and teens is our best reward.

We are committed to continue working with and for the autism community in Venezuela. With your support it is possible. Thank you!

Looking forward to an amazing 2016, thanks to you

Dear Donors,

Only four months through the 2015-2016 school year and we already have many accomplishments, thanks to all of you.

Autismo en Voz Alta’s main goal is to develop students’ skills and abilities to allow them to integrate effectively within their communities. Recently, two of our students developed academic skills and behavioral improvements that allowed them to be integrated in regular schools. We congratulate them and their families for their huge accomplishment!!!

In addition, our oldest students have developed many independent skills and are now able to move around the building with minimal supervision while delivering messages and performing minor chores.

Meanwhile, we have continued working on improving our educational system. We now have a physical education program that aims to develop motor and leisure time skills while increasing students’ abilities to pay attention and follow instructions.  We are very proud that a high functioning autistic teacher, an old patient of our institution, runs the program. In addition, two additional psychologists joined our assessment services team while our management is reviewing the process to strengthen the quality of our services.

Our best reference is the satisfaction of our teachers and families for the work done. Parents are very happy with their kids’ learned skills and teachers are looking forward to work with us. We truly hope that you will be as excited as we are in our efforts.

In Autismo en Voz Alta we are committed to improve and enhance the scope and quality of the education we offer. Your support makes this possible.

Links:

• Autismo en Voz Alta