Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

Respond wanted to use #givingtuesday as a stepping stone to making our voices heard and making us  an organisation more seen within social media. 

Respond is a small charity working with children, adolescents and adults who are living with autism and/ or learning disabilities in the UK, who have been affected by trauma and abuse. We support our clients by offering them psychotherapy, advocacy and consultation both directly with people living with the different abilities and with their families, carers and professionals around them. 

Why a sponsored silence? Too often, people with a learning disability and autism are not heard, their disclosures are denied, their needs are forgotten; decisions are made for them, and not with them. 

So our decision to do a sponsored silence is in recognition that our world does not cater to those of us who communicate differently, who have not been heard, who have been denied their human rights. 

And really, we talk too much! Remaining silent will be a challenge, and we hope to learn from this experience - maybe  a little sign language, maybe become more observant of body language .   We want to also find inventive and more creative ways to communicate and obviously we want to raise money for our services and/or buy resources. 

The Fun part- if you know Elizabeth, Young People's Co-ordinator at Respond- she LOVES a chat, a catch up, a gossip, a moan, a joke, a talk etc etc, and she will be keeping quiet for the whole day and documenting it through short clips and social media updates. 

Lynne, Respond's ISVA Co-ordinator, is known for her sharp wit and quick thinking and doesn't love anything more than having a catch up over a cup of tea, she will also be taking a vow of silence and documenting her day! 

We have a few more staff in the silent pipe line that will be joining us and we will update with names when they confirm!

Anything you can offer, from £1, to £100 will be warmly received, if you can't afford any financial contributions there are other ways to support us!

Please do like our Facebook and Twitter pages, share this with your networks and speak about us to all you know! 

When on line, please use our HASHTAG #responduk 

www.facebook.com/RespondUK 

www.twitter.com/Respond_UK

Thank you for reading and shhhhh!