Because our ambitions of the ATHENS Initiative are bold, and our resolve unwavering, the founders ‘make friends’ with large companies, organizations, schools, and fellow neurodivergents. Organizations we visit, we usually call our friends. We aim to visit all organizations in the Netherlands that have 200+ workers in their employment (within the context of the likelyhood that a part of these workers are neurodivergents). Some of these friendship leads to receiving unexpected support, in advice, a introduction, invitation and so on. We are very grateful for what is given to us as a gift, without a need for reciprocation. And we will continue to accept that, until we are done with our big goals.
And this works. For all parties involved. Because the problem we aim to solve, is present in every major organization, and fixing it, means enabling potentially succesfull people to thrive, also in their jobs. And we want to help autistics and neurodivergents keep their job, and feel safe in their work-related communication: there is a clear logic as to why organizations enjoy working with us and vice versa. But also, let this be said and stated clearly: there are simply a very large sum of very good and kind people, who use their smarts or compassion to understand why we are doing what we do, and chose to support us in ways we could not have imagined.