IWD 2022 Suezanne Awotwi, changing the WORLD for autistic people
- By Brian Leveson
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- 07 Mar, 2022
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International Women's Day 2022: Difficult Parent is celebrating Suzanne Awotwi. Suezanne is the co-founder of the Haringey based European Diversity Awards Community Project of the Year “Brightstars”. So, having won a European award for their work in Haringey, those 'Brightstars' have now turned their sights on to Africa!
Suezanne, you have set up a charity for young people with learning disabilities in Haringey, can you tell us a little bit about what drove you to do that and what the charity is?
Brightstars is an award winning charity based in Hornsey Ward of Haringey supporting young people with autism a safe and fun place for them to confidently express themselves through various activities such as African Drumming and Dance, Art, Movement Therapy, Sports, Reading Club. In addition, we provide workshops for Families and Carers of our members and organise various trips e.g. Picnics, Theatre, Canal Cruise, etc. Our next workshop is focused on wellness. We also provide transition support and advocate for them in their reviews, assessments and any other support as and when required by our members. Interestingly, Brightstars was started as a youth club but we could not turn our backs to young children, adults and the elderly who wanted to attend, diversity and inclusion is important to us. We now have members as young as 5yers and as old as 60yrs. We use a holistic approach ensuring that it is not just our members who attend but their family and friends too. We encourage residents and people from the neighbourhood to attend too. Vida and I also visit churches, organisations, groups, etc. to give talks in raising autism awareness.I started Brightstars in response to a request from my dear friend Vida Black (Chair of Haringey Carers Forum) in 2013 to support her in responding to a need in the community. Her son Claude had completed Special Needs School and there was not much for him to do. At that time, I was extremely busy with other community activities within my own Borough but upon extensive research including resident surveys in the Hornsey area in 2013, noted that there wasn't any club like Brightstars. Thus we used our personal savings to set up Brightstars in February 2014 and registered as a charity in December 2014, and as they say the rest is history. I am proud to mention that we were finalists for Charity of the Year in 2019 by the Ghana Union UK and the British Diversity Awards. We won the European Diversity Awards in 2021 and are finalist for the British Diversity Awards 2022.
But that's not all! You've gone International! Can you tell us about your charity in Ghana, where is it? What does it do? And what led you to setting it up?
One of our long-term goals was to expand Brightstars perhaps to other boroughs or indeed in another area of Haringey. Not in a million years did we think we would go international. We visited Dominase, a small village in the Central Region of Ghana and noted that there was a need to support children with autism in that village. There was no special needs school nor a club like ours. Thus upon research and numerous meetings with various stakeholders, we set up a branch of Brightstars in Ghana - launched in November 2021. We are very proud of the impact that Brightstars is making to the lives of these young people.
How can people help you I all that you do? Do you need volunteers or fund raising?
We need all the help we can get. As a small charity within the community with such big impact on our members, we do not have a lot of funding. Thus we ask kind people and organisations to donate financially if they can but also to donate their time and services. We welcome volunteers who can drop by to support our work or fundraise on our behalf or facilitate a workshop. We are open to ideas and welcome anyone interested to contact us please via our website link below:
https://brightstarsspecialclub.com/
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