Euan Buenavides is a whizz kid when it comes to computers and, like any other enterprising 15-year-old would, he jumped at the chance to trade school for real-life work in a corporate office.
But Euan is autistic and employment opportunities for people such as him are still rare. That is what makes Euan’s work placement, as a payroll assistant at the Dubai offices of Grant Thornton accounting and advisory practice, so remarkable.
It marks the first time since Dubai Autism Centre opened in 2001 that one of their pupils has been taken on work experience.
Every Wednesday morning for the past four months, Euan has been driven to Grant Thornton’s office on Sheikh Zayed Road with Dubai Autism Centre’s computing teacher Jabuc Camerong.
The Filipino teen is taller than many adults and could easily pass for any member of the office team in his shirt, tie and jacket.
“Euan is proud to go to work,” says his mother, Elcy Buenavides. “He is surrounded by adults and is following the norms of corporate culture.”
But the office environment is a world away from life in his class of four at Dubai Autism Centre. Euan has a high-functioning verbal form of autism. Some children in his class are low functioning.
“This office environment is a breath of fresh air for him, and different surroundings trigger different behaviour.”
It has been a steep learning curve for Euan to adapt to corporate life.
“He was very nervous on the first day,” says Grant Thornton’s people and culture manager, Cameron Clark.
“He wasn’t used to the noises you’d generally hear in any office environment – simple things like the churning of a coffee machine or a phone ringing, which threw him off and might have distracted him from completing a certain task.
“But he’s taken some training, at Dubai Autism Centre and internally at Grant Thornton, to become more used to these noises. Now he is very focused, he has a really steady temperament and he’s committed to doing a great job.”
Euan used to tell his mother he wanted to be a National Geographic photographer when he was older, or a zookeeper. But now he has his heart set on becoming an accountant.
“I like numbers and I want to be a good boy, to work hard,” he says.
Euan’s main work duties at Grant Thornton would put him in good stead for accountancy, as they include working on reports, and filling out spreadsheets on Microsoft Excel.
“I prefer doing that to going to school,” he says, “And my favourite part of the day is snacking.”
The other employees laugh out loud in response.
Grant Thornton’s head of marketing, Mandip Dulay, says the real values people such as Euan bring to an organisation include “extra energy, attention to detail and a creative mindset”. Having Euan around also reminds the office staff to smile.
“When you’re in a corporate environment, sometimes you’re so focused on your day-to-day work, you forget to smile,” Ms Dulay says. “I think that’s where Euan’s been a real strength for us.”
She says the work placement is one aspect of a wider initiative by their chief executive, Hisham Farouk, to support Dubai Autism Centre.
“We also have a CSR campaign that we do internally and for the past two years, we’ve taken all of our team on an annual away day to Dubai Autism Centre,” Ms Dulay says.
“The first half of the day is our team’s annual strategy meeting, then for the remainder of the day we interact with the students. It gives our team the opportunity to appreciate the centre.”
People such as Euan have until recently faced a bleak future at the end of their schooling. Now the Government is taking steps to integrate them into society.
A new policy, announced in April by the Ministry of Community Development, promises to offer those with autism training, job opportunities and career development advice.
Employing people with cognitive disabilities is catching on around the world. Companies are not just looking to enhance their corporate social responsibility profiles, but also seeing possible economic benefits.
People with autism can exhibit higher than average ability to solve complex problems using reasoning that requires little use of language.
Jamie Woodruff, a British ethical hacker with autism who is paid by companies such as Bloomberg and Barclays to test their systems, is a poster boy for the neurodiversity movement.
He attended a Global Summit for Women Speakers of Parliament in Abu Dhabi last December to explain how he overcame his challenges to thrive in his career.
And in Australia, Hewlett Packard Enterprise is a pioneer in employing people who are on the autistic spectrum. Through its Dandelion Programme, the company employs 58 autistic employees in software testing, data analytics and cybersecurity.
As Michael Fieldhouse, the Dandelion architect, told Forbes Magazine last month, their neurodiverse software testers are achieving a higher quality of test results than any others.
Dubai Autism Centre head of community service, Sara Baker, hopes the centre will soon have a graduate recognised as deserving of paid employment.
“We are seeing more organisations opening their doors to the handicapped and it’s a beautiful thing,” she says.
Grant Thornton has indicated that the next phase of Euan’s placement will be paid.
“I worry about what the future holds for him,” Elcy says. “I don’t want to be looking after my son forever. He is becoming more mature now.
“He is aware he’s going to work and he’s also excited to be with other people, but he is still in transition. I tell him he’s not a young boy any more, he has to act like a grown-up.”
Elcy recalls the anguish she felt when Euan’s autism was diagnosed at the age of 3, and she soon discovered that finding a decent therapist in Dubai was “like finding a needle in a haystack”, and good education for those with special needs was rare.
She remembers an incident at a nursery to which she took Euan when he was 4.
“When my mum came to pick him up he was tied up in a chair,” Elcy says. “I was so upset about that, I didn’t want to send him to any school.”
Euan was on the waiting list for Dubai Autism Centre for four years before he was offered a place.
Elcy eventually found solace in meeting other parents who were experiencing similar problems.
“I went to a group parents meeting once a month. It really helped, getting exposed to people in the same situation. I also went to church and I started to look for books to read.”
When he is not at school or work, Euan attends art workshops at the Jam Jar, walks the family’s four Yorkie puppies, plays tennis and helps Elcy, who works from home for a non-profit organisation, with data entry.
Elcy keeps her son busy to distract him from playing computer games.
“He is a very good gamer but his social skills were suffering because he was on the gadgets too much,” she says. “I noticed that his nervous system is working overtime when he’s online, even when he’s just browsing.
“He can even go on two or three gadgets at the same time. It gets too much and he doesn’t talk to me any more. It also became very expensive because when he got upset, he used to throw the remote. I was buying a new remote control once a week.”
Jabuc says that in Dubai Autism Centre, pupils who are skilled in technology are given special training in a computer-aided therapy.
“This will hopefully lead to more work placements,” he says.
The biggest challenge for Euan, Jabuc says, is that the social environment in an office is so different from the centre.
“But he is starting to overcome that. Now he can complete his work within the allotted time, so we’re able to give him extra tasks. He’s learning to be more flexible.”
newsdesk@thenational.ae
