Just a friendly reminder:
It’s mid-April and still National Autism Awareness month.

That’s right! April is National Autism Awareness month. Something that almost anyone who loves someone with autism knows. We see a lot of people spreading autism awareness. It’s awesome, and we wanted to share our thoughts about autism awareness and how we personally promote autism awareness.

We were at an event a couple years back that was for autism awareness and the MC chanted over the microphone, “We’re here today to spread autism awareness!” and the crowd, who clearly were already aware of autism or else they wouldn’t of even known about the event, cheered and applauded as we marched onto a back road where no one could hear or see our message. It was really disappointing and changed my perspective on how to spread and promote autism awareness.

Chances are that if read our blog, follow us on Twitter, are a fan of us on Facebook, or are subscribed to us on YouTube, you are aware of autism, or at least starting to become aware. So how do we spread and promote autism awareness when the majority of people who are reading this are probably already aware?

First, I’ll tell you what we don’t do. We don’t hold an autism awareness event where everyone there is clearly aware or else they wouldn’t be there, and then take that event and walk into the woods and promote autism awareness to the squirrels. Instead, spread that autism awareness event to an audience that doesn’t know about autism. Makes sense right? Bring it to the peoples attention. Get noticed! Even if it makes someone say, “What the hell was that all about?...” Well, that’s a start.

That’s how you truly spread awareness.

My point is, you can’t spread autism awareness within the autism community. I mean, we can talk about autism within the autism community, and we can learn a lot from each other even. In fact, we strongly encourage people to talk to each other about autism! But to actually spread autism awareness, to spread the message itself, you need to reach outside of the autism community.

So here are the ways we spread autism awareness. We tell our story with the hopes and expectations that someone will listen, someone will be aware. Plain and simple.

• We write a blog where we share our lives with you and our experiences as people who love someone with autism: https://www.bubblesmakehimsmile.com
• We write articles and make videos sharing our story and send them to anyone that has a way to publish it. Whether it’s a small or huge outlet, online, on cable, or on paper, local or international. We’re talking newspapers, magazines, radio shows, talk shows, and everything in between! If they have a ‘contact us’ option available, we contact them! See one of our articles on Tonic.com: Taking a Stand Against Autism
• We get involved on the social networks. We send out tweets on Twitter and post messages on Facebook to names with big audiences and big hearts, and ask them to re-tweet or re-post what we wrote in hopes that their followers or fans see it, and maybe re-tweet it or re-post it, spreading the message.

• We ask people to share our story with their friends and family in hopes that they will pass it to there friends and family, and those people pass it to there friends and family, and so forth.
• We get noticed and get involved in the community. We blow bubbles for Canada Day at Canada Place! We rally with Canucks Autism Network! We even have an autism awareness ribbon colouring page! Who doesn’t love to colour?!
• And finally, we surround ourselves with good people. Really, really, good people. See who we follow on Twitter and ‘Like’ on Facebook.

At the end of the day, the autism community is the best place to connect and interact with people who understand everything autism, but they are not the people that you need to spread autism awareness to.

Please help spread autism awareness outside of the autism community.

Thanks for reading,
Tanaya