{"id":291,"date":"2009-04-02T11:54:31","date_gmt":"2009-04-02T11:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/04\/world-autism-awareness-day.html"},"modified":"2009-04-02T11:54:31","modified_gmt":"2009-04-02T11:54:31","slug":"world-autism-awareness-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/04\/world-autism-awareness-day.html","title":{"rendered":"World Autism Awareness Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldautismawarenessday.org\">World Autism Awareness Day<\/a>:<\/p>\n<div><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>On December 18, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 62\/139, tabled by the State of Qatar, which declares April 2 as World Autism Awareness Day (WAAD) in perpetuity. Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, Consort of His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of the State of Qatar, supported the campaign for a World Autism Awareness Day through the current 62nd UN General Assembly Session, garnering consensus support from all United Nations Member States.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>This UN resolution is one of only three official disease-specific United Nations Days and will bring the world&#8217;s attention to autism, a pervasive disorder that affects tens of millions. The World Autism Awareness Day resolution encourages all Member States to take measures to raise awareness about autism throughout society and to encourage early diagnosis and early intervention. It further expresses deep concern at the prevalence and high rate of autism in children in all regions of the world and the consequent developmental challenges.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>World Autism Awareness Day shines a bright light on autism as a growing global health crisis. WAAD activities help to increase and develop world knowledge of the autism epidemic and \u00a0impart information regarding the importance of early diagnosis and early intervention.\u00a0Additionally, WAAD celebrates the unique talents and skills of persons with autism and is a day when individuals with autism are warmly welcomed and embraced in community events around the globe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It is interesting to note that this was initiated by the muslim country of Qatar. There are many muslims involved in autism awareness; one example is <a href=\"http:\/\/anarchlyst.wordpress.com\/the-blogger\/\">Yunus Yakoub Islam<\/a>, a fellow <a href=\"http:\/\/talkislam.info\/author\/plimfix\/\">contributor at Talk Islam<\/a>, who has written <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bayyinat.org.uk\/autism.htm\">extensively about his autistic son<\/a> at <em>The Tasneem Project<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0As he and <a href=\"http:\/\/talkislam.info\/2009\/04\/01\/autism-rates-are-higher-for-us-born-so\/\">others<\/a> have noted, there is an unusually high incidence of autism among the Somali diaspora in the US (primarily <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/04\/01\/health\/01autism.html?src=sch\">Minneapolis<\/a>) and in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thelocal.se\/13064\/20080715\/\">Sweden<\/a>. Also, Beliefnet Editor Dilshad Ali wrote \u00a0two pieces, about how her <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Health\/2008\/09\/Life-With-Autism-Faith-Keeps-Us-Going.aspx\">faith in Islam gave her strength<\/a> in coping with her son&#8217;s autism, and how autism actually <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Faiths\/2006\/11\/How-Autism-Reinvigorated-My-Muslim-Faith.aspx\">strengthened her own faith<\/a>.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is World Autism Awareness Day: On December 18, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 62\/139, tabled by the State of Qatar, which declares April 2 as World Autism Awareness Day (WAAD) in perpetuity. Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, Consort of His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[257,256],"class_list":["post-291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-read-this","tag-autism","tag-health"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>World Autism Awareness Day - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"World Autism Awareness Day - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today is World Autism Awareness Day: On December 18, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 62\/139, tabled by the State of Qatar, which declares April 2 as World Autism Awareness Day (WAAD) in perpetuity. Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, Consort of His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/04\/world-autism-awareness-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-02T11:54:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"World Autism Awareness Day - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"World Autism Awareness Day - City of Brass","og_description":"Today is World Autism Awareness Day: On December 18, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 62\/139, tabled by the State of Qatar, which declares April 2 as World Autism Awareness Day (WAAD) in perpetuity. Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, Consort of His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/04\/world-autism-awareness-day.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2009-04-02T11:54:31+00:00","author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/04\/world-autism-awareness-day.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/04\/world-autism-awareness-day.html","name":"World Autism Awareness Day - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-04-02T11:54:31+00:00","dateModified":"2009-04-02T11:54:31+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/04\/world-autism-awareness-day.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/04\/world-autism-awareness-day.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/04\/world-autism-awareness-day.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"World Autism Awareness Day"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}