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Chris Morgan, who competed at Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016, met with with students and families at the Aspect Central Coast School today for Walk for autism, Autism Spectrum Australia's, flagship national fundraising and awareness campaign, aimed at creating a world where no-one on the autism spectrum is left behind.
Principal Mark Rudd, from the Aspect Central Coast School said, Walk for autism was a free national event held annually to raise funds to support children and adults on the autism spectrum.
“Every year in celebration, our students come together to do a walk-a-thon to raise money that goes directly to our school.
“Having someone like Chris Morgan come along to speak to the students provides such incredible inspiration for our students and gives them an important role model to look up to,” Mr Rudd said, “It is just such a great opportunity.”
A planned walkathon for the day had to be cancelled due to rain, but Morgan met with over 40 senior students from the school's senior campus to walk laps of the perimeter of the school, before talking to the students about his experience of being an Olympian on the autism spectrum.
Morgan said he had been looking forward to connecting with the students to show what possibilities are out there for people on the autism spectrum.
“As someone on the autism spectrum myself, I have never really fit in, and life was a series of opening my own eyes as to what I can do and where I can go,” Morgan said. “We all tell ourselves the story of what is and isn’t possible – I hope sharing my story with kids will dispel a lot of those myths.
“We put these limits on ourselves based on only knowing stories we’ve heard – but there are so many stories outside the norm and life can take us in some pretty interesting directions. We all have a lot more possibility than what we believe.
"I want to share a message that can hopefully make a little bit of a change in their lives. If my story can help kids rethink what they can do, that’s a massive thing.
“I think we’re only limited by the doors we’re willing to walk through – we can better support people from all different backgrounds to discover doors they may not have even know existed and to help them achieve what they want to achieve.”
