About The Moonshot Vision
It was clear from our research that as a society we still have a long way to go to understanding the value that autistic individuals can bring to our community. Society needs to respect the integral role of autistic people, friends, families and carers have in each other’s lives.
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The Moonshot project was launched at the start of this year to get a better understanding of what a future society should look and feel like. This project aimed to give us tangible goals to aim for, not just for our charity but for the whole of society including, other organisations, campaigners and governments.
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Throughout the project, we’ve worked hard to make sure that all parts of society, and every stage and aspect of autistic life has been recognised and valued. We have reached out to autistic people and their families through social media, workshops, surveys, interviews, discussions and non-verbal creative activities. You may have contributed through our Big Questions.
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We’ve called it “Moonshot” because it’s ambitious, and reaching it is going to take years of hard work on many different things – just like landing someone on the moon all those years ago. But the fact it won’t be easy makes it even more important. If it were easy, it would have already happened.
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The next step for the National Autistic Society is to develop and share a new strategy that defines our role in achieving a society that works for autistic people. This work is already well under way, and we look forward to sharing our new strategy in April 2023.
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What we have tried to do with our own Moonshot project is help describe what we are all working for, so that it can help us all plan to get there – and encourage more people to join us in getting there. We hope that you find that these future realities resonate with you, and describe a world that you want to see. Your ideas might look a bit different and some things might be more important for you than others. But if you find our future realities helpful, please use them - whether you are one person, a small group or a large organisation. While we will be using them to shape everything we do, we don’t want to be the only ones. We want to work with others to support their ideas too.
Our Future Realities
Autistic people and their families told us a society that really works:
- Values autistic individuals
- Maximises autistic power
- Guarantees support
- Adapts public spaces and services
- And is free from discrimination