LONDON, UK: Ivan and Charika Corea, of the Autism Awareness Campaign UK, have issued a call in Autism Awareness Week (which falls on May 17-24 in 2004) for the British government to support autistic children and adults from Britain's ethnic minority communities.

Their campaign declared: "Autism is on the rise in the ethnic population in the United Kingdom. It is astonishing that we have no real statistical data across the UK of people with autism and Asperger's syndrome from the ethnic minorities. Parents, carers and people with autism are calling for urgent government action in 2004. A postcode lottery to health, education, specialist speech therapy and respite care still exists.

"Many struggle without access to public services. There is a shortage of SEN (Special Educational Needs) teachers and speech therapists from the ethnic minorities. Some ethnic parents remain confused; they do not know who to turn to when their children are diagnosed with autism."

Ivan Corea said: "We also need the government to address the serious problems of autistic people from the ethnic minorities and the labour market."

His campaign noted that the size of the minority ethnic population in the UK was 4.6 million in 2001 or 7.9 per cent of Britain's total population. "The government will have to take into account the demographic changes in the UK," it added.

More details of this campaign can be found on the website:

http://autism-ethnic-uk.tripod.com

(Sources: Ivan Corea, Adam Feinstein, May 14, 2004)