I know it
has been a while and that most of you probably thought I have stopped updating
my blog. For a while I was actually considering of doing just that, because I
didn't have much interesting things to say.
But that
changed! Recently I have started voluntary work as an experience expert for
Autism at 'MEE Utrecht, Overvecht en Gooi'. That's a foundation that supports
people with a disability in all kinds of ways.
My tasks
will include giving presentations, talk to clients who need contact with
someone who understands them, and test new systems. In the future more tasks
might be added.
Last
Tuesday I had my first presentation. A psychologist gave a training about
Autism and how to communicate with someone with Autism and I was asked to give
a presentation at the end of the training, as to give some insight in how
living with Autism can possibly look like.
Of course I
was very nervous before the presentation. It's something new and new things are
scary, even more so if you're on the spectrum. The people at MEE were
absolutely marvellous in guiding me through this! They gave me as much clarity
on everything that was going to happen as they could. They also helped me with
putting together my presentation, as I was having a hard time with deciding
which things were important enough to include (I could talk for hours about
Autism and still only touch the tip of the iceberg!) and which things I could
leave out.
The day of
the presentation started in absolute chaos. Because I was so nervous, I
couldn't plan anything at all (and got a bit stubborn and didn't listen to my
sister... Sorry!), which had me running late. Luckily my sister, who I asked to
tag along for support and to maybe also tell a bit at the presentation,
understood and helped me to get everything together on time.
When we
arrived at the place of the presentation, we met the psychologist who would
lead the training. She's very nice, understanding and knows what she's talking
about.
We were
then lead to the room where the presentation was to be held. Soon, we noticed
the room was way too small to fit the amount of people who would be in the
audience. Luckily there was another, bigger, room that was still empty and we
could use it.
After
switching rooms, we started setting everything up. Then we couldn't get the
beamer to show the presentation. Luckily that was soon fixed by someone who
worked at the location. After it was all set up, it was soon time to begin
and... There was nobody.
We started
getting nervous. What was all this about?
Again, luck
was on our side. Someone managed to contact someone who was meant to be in the
audience and we soon learned there was a communication problem. They would
arrive half an hour later. Good, we weren't without an audience.
That was a
very bumpy start of a first presentation, but hey, it's not like I'm not used
to these kind of things, right? Happens all the time at the events that I help
out at.
So I was
soon able to grab myself together again and to greet everyone entering the
room. Then the training started.
The
training started with having a member of the audience try to have a fake
in-take meeting with me and the psychologist, my sister and me gave feedback.
After that the psychologist gave her presentation.
We had a
lunch break and then it was time for me to give my presentation. I was still
pretty nervous, but as soon as I was speaking, all my worries disappeared. I
simply told everything that I wanted to tell and I was fuelled by the amazing
questions that the audience asked me! I could tell they were very interested
and the psychologist, my sister and a MEE employee confirmed that the audience
was indeed very interested.
Afterwards
the audience had to put to practice everything they learned about communicating
with someone with autism in a short conversation with each other, and we gave
feedback again. This last exercise really showed that they learned a lot. We
hit home run!
One of them
said: "There's so much that I would do differently now..."
After that
the training was over and we said goodbye to everyone. While saying goodbye,
everyone shook my hand and most of them thanked me for my presentation. A few
even stopped a bit longer to tell me that they thought my presentation really
struck a cord with them and was really an asset to the training. One of them
told me she had a buddy with Autism and she could recognise a lot of what I
spoke about.
I
absolutely loved doing this presentation! Now that I know what it's like, I'm
sure I won't be that nervous anymore the next time and I can't wait until I can
do this again!
Gaaf! :)
ReplyDeleteyay, glad you are blogging again, can't wait to see more posts!
ReplyDelete