The Universidad Industrial de Santander (UIS) commemorated World Autism Awareness Day, carrying out a series of activities in its regional headquarters and different campuses. This event, designed to raise awareness and educate students, professors, alumni and staff, aimed to highlight the importance of inclusion in the educational environment and in everyday life.
The activities, framed within the inclusion program ‘We Are All’, is led by Student Welfare and has the support of the Academic Excellence System (SEA), the Student Councils and the professionals of the Listening Center. Through workshops, lectures and interactive dynamics, the university community had the opportunity to reflect on autism and the various ways to promote an inclusive environment.
“We developed an educational proposal called ‘We Are All’, which refers to inclusive education, according to agreement 032 of 2019, which promotes these spaces and the articulation with different administrative units to generate a comprehensive accompaniment to our students” stated Madelin Pastrana Rodriguez, social worker of Student Welfare.
The commemoration not only sought to inform, but also to promote empathy and respect towards people with autism, highlighting the need to create spaces where everyone feels valued and accepted. For Shirley Remolina, SEA Student Counselor, “these spaces seek to include all students with different abilities and also to understand them in order to provide them with better support”.
For graduate Jeison Esneider Uribe these activities “are important to make people aware of the educational needs that are experienced in the academic environment both in high school and at the university level”.
Felipe Garzón, student of Biomedical Engineering at UIS Floridablanca highlights that these inclusive activities “are incredible because it provides spaces from the educational environment for all people in all conditions”.
With this initiative, the work of awareness and education continues, contributing to the construction of a more just and equitable society for all. The UIS reaffirms its commitment to inclusion and diversity, working so that each member of its community can fully develop in an environment that respects and celebrates differences.
