Our Heroes
Merry Barua
Merry Barua, Director Action For Autism, is an activist, special educator, and a parent to a son with autism. Merry started the autism movement in India when lack of information and misconceptions about this enigmatic disorder abounded. With little support from society or authorities of the time, she set about changing the scenario in awareness, diagnostics, services, and policy, among others. Merry writes, teaches, lobbies, sensitizes, counsels, and advocates. Her focus on ‘spreading the word’ and enabling families to empower themselves, has led to a growth in services and the formation of empowered parent groups, and in particular of parent driven services. Action For Autism, the national organisation that she helped found is infused with Merry’s vision of an inclusive society that looks not merely at individuals with social and communication challenges, but at all those who do not fit into society’s judgmental ‘norms’. Merry is an Ashoka Fellow and has received national and international recognition for her work.
Merry has been working with AACTION and is our point person for autism training in New Delhi. She is an amazing woman and a true blessing to people with autism and their families. AACTION is both inspired by her work and honored to name her an AACTION Hero!
Dave Kaplan
Dave came into the life of AACTION at a critical time. We were planning our first event, Rockin’ for Autism . We had $57.00 in our bank account and were in need of support in order to keep AACTION afloat. Dave not only provided financial support to our organization – he believed in our mission and energized us to move to bigger and better things.
Dave gave hours of his time to AACTION offering ideas, organizing events, and generously giving his own money as well as finding supporters for our cause. Dave’s passion for life and our organization was nothing short of amazing - the news of his passing was nothing short of tragic.
While discussing his loss at an AACTION Board meeting, it became clear to us that Dave’s involvement with AACTION was invaluable because he helped give us the courage to continue. It was bittersweet, however, because we had lost a friend that had so much more to give.
We hope that this acknowledgment will always remind people of how important Dave’s contributions were at a critical time in the history of AACTION. That is something for which we will always be grateful.
