About us

The beating heart driving our campaign

In summer 2017 we – Sanna Kontinen, a Finnish ABA therapist with a career-long background in autism, and Rob Garratt, a British arts journalist with a phobia of children – visited SSDRC’s current home for close to a month, working on a voluntary basis with the children and offering specialist training to the staff (well, Sanna did – Rob took these pictures and tried to look busy).

We saw first-hand how the small, dirty and under-resourced school site – which has limited outdoor space and a single toilet for more than 50 children and staff – was hampering not just the students’ academic progress, but their health and well-being.

But these are the lucky ones – there are currently more than 400 students on a waiting list, hoping to one day become part of the SSDRC family. The only way this will happen, is with a bigger, better school.  

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Our experiences inspired us to start this campaign to help turn dreams into reality, and build SSDRC's first proper home, guranteeing the school's future for generations to come.