The Knowledge to Decide

To commemorate World Autism Awareness Day, Spire released its pro-bono study focusing on Indonesia’s autistic children, working in collaboration with Rumah Autis (Home for the Autistic) – an Indonesian NGO that provides therapy and raises awareness about autistic children. The first-of-its-kind autism mapping project highlighted the rising number of autism cases in children. These findings were published in The Jakarta Post – a prominent Indonesian online news portal. Autism – a complex developmental disorder – is on the rise in Indonesia. As more children are diagnosed with this condition, Indonesia needs to provide more affordable therapy centres and schools. According to the findings of the study, over 139,000 children (under the age of 17) suffer from this condition – with 25,000 children in West Java alone. These children often do not receive adequate medical attention due to the uneven distribution of therapists and high costs. The findings reveal that each child with A

Creating a more supportive environment for persons with disabilities (PWDs) was one of the key thrusts in Singapore’s Budget for 2014. Spire took a closer look at the issue of the employability of PWDs, embarking on a pro-bono study – telephonic interviews with 100 companies listed on the Singapore Exchange – to explore Singapore employers’ practices when it comes to hiring PWDs. The Spire study found that 20% of the surveyed companies expressed willingness to hire PWDs, but 18% would like to explore how they can do better on this front. In addition, 96% revealed that there were no concrete initiatives and policies in place to actively hire and integrate PWDs. This suggests that awareness and best practice knowledge was an inhibitor. As for the remaining 4%, they provided training to all employees, regardless of physical or mental disabilities, in the belief that this would ensure fair career progression and personal development opportunities for all. The survey responden