Women win BBC awards for shining a light on autism

Lorna Higgins-Bare and Antonia Rainbow are the winners of the BBC Guernsey Make a Difference Award

Two islanders have won the BBC Guernsey Make a Difference Awards for their work to help families of children with autism.

Lorna Higgins-Bare and Antonia Rainbow were presented with the trophy on Thursday night in recognition of their work creating a Facebook group called Autism and Me Guernsey.

In just over a year the group has grown to more than 500 members, a success that one of the judges, Raj Singh, called "a really great job" of sharing information about autism.

Last week five islanders were announced as finalists in the awards which aim to celebrate people who have made a positive difference in their community.

'Speechless'

Ms Higgins-Bare and Mrs Rainbow set up the Facebook support group after their own children were diagnosed with the condition.

Ms Higgins-Bare said she was "speechless" and that winning the award was "very unexpected".

"We were up against some incredible competition," she said.

"There's some really amazing people out there doing some great work and doing some great work for our community. I didn't expect this, but it's incredible."

She added: "If anything this has definitely made me feel more motivated to keep going, doing some more things to support the community.

"I suppose this is only the beginning, it's only been a year that we've been up and running so check back in in 12 months' time."

Mrs Rainbow added: "When we started this it was just about trying to reach out to other parents in the same situation as us. But to think we've got over 500 parents now who we're making a difference for."

Mrs Rainbow said the group started out as a "place to look at doing [inclusive] events" but soon become "much more than that".

'Breaking barriers'

Hannah Robins, who nominated the pair, said: "Before they started the group, I didn't feel there was any support out there if you had a neuro-divergent child.

"You feel judged by other people, you feel like you don't want to go anywhere, you don't want your child to be involved in anything that other children are involved in because you're scared of how they're going to behave.

"Lorna and Antonia break that barrier down.

She added: "They've introduced autism friendly events; they've made a massive difference.

"I feel like there's a massive support network in place that wasn't there before."

'So moving'

Mark Mapp, chief executive officer of Guernsey's Ambulance and Rescue Service was another of the judges, working alongside douzenier Evita Bormane and author and speaker Jayne Ozanne.

Mr Mapp said: "It made me very proud to be part of a community where there are lots of people doing lots of good things.

"It actually made me very emotional as well because there are some very humbling things happening in our community that I am completely unaware of in my daily life."

Ms Bormane added: "It's so moving to see ordinary people doing extraordinary things."