Autistic Advocacy in Croatia: Interview with ASK

In this EUCAP Member Interview, ASK board members Kosjenka Petek and Zrinka Sinkovic share ASK’s autistic advocacy successes in Croatia.

Interview by Maya Parson 

What was the motivation for founding your organization?  

There was no organization in Croatia that advocated for the rights of autistic adults and autistic children in the mainstream education system. We needed to help our children and ourselves as late-identified and late-diagnosed Autistic women, so we started an advocacy initiative that later became an NGO: Autism, Neurodiversity and Self-Advocacy Society/ Udruga za autizam i ostale neurodivergentnosti, samozastupanje i kulturu različitosti.

Collage of four women arranged in a two-by-two grid around a circular “ASK” logo in the center. Top left: Željka: A woman with mid lengt dark brown hair, blue eyes and light skin is looking directly at the camera, wearing sunglasses on her head. She has a calm expression, with a blurred red foliage background. Top right: Eva: A woman with short dark hair and light skin sits indoors in front of a wall with a communication board. She is wearing a light patterned blouse and looking at the camera. Bottom left: Zrinka: A woman with short brown hair and light skin is standing outdoors on a sunny street. She is wearing bright blue rectangular glasses and a light top, looking straight at the camera. Bottom right: Kosjenka: A woman with mid length, curly brown hair and light skin is smiling at the camera. She is wearing a dark blazer, standing against a light stone wall background.
ASK team, 2026. “We are four mothers who engage in volunteer work and activities before or after our daily jobs.” (Clockwise from top left: Željka, Eva, Kosjenka, and Zrinka.)

What are your main activities and projects?   

Our main activity is advocacy. From the beginning, even as a citizen’s initiative we have been working on educating educational professionals, medical professionals, and families of Autistic people about autism, inclusion, accessibility, mental health, AAC, and Autistic culture.  

We organize an annual Autism and Mental Health Conference for professionals. 

We have regular Autistic Soirees for autistic adults. For Autistic Pride Day, we organize an annual Autistic Picnic which brings together families, autistic community, and our allies. We organize annual InCulture events where we advocate for accessible museums and accessible culture. 

 

Autism Day, 2019. Families in Zagreb’s main square show their support for autistic children in state schools. (Image from Pixel.)
Autism Day, Zagreb 2019. Families in the main square show their support for autistic children in state schools.

What specific achievements or impacts are you most proud of?  

We are most proud of our Autism and Mental Health Conference. We received great feedback from professionals, and we slowly see changes taking place in the way autistic people are understood and supported. 

Also, we are one of the few autistic-led organizations that has a really good relationship and cooperation with our National Autism Organisation, and we are proud of that. It has taken us some time to get to know each other and start trusting each other, but now we are focused on building bridges and keeping the dialogue open with those we don’t immediately see eye-to-eye with. They have become our main project partner and try hard to listen to us. We feel that this is one of our “best practices” that is valuable to share with other organisations. 

We are proud of our support of LGBTQIA+ community, for which we received a “LOTY” award in 2022. 

We are still the only disability organisation in Croatia openly supporting LGBTQIA+ community. It is a source of great sadness that our society doesn’t recognize the intersectionality of disabled people. 

We are also deeply proud of our work on the right to communication and AAC, and of how, as an organisation, we helped pave the way for AAC to become one of the important educational topics in parenting autistic children and young people. 

We are also proud of our research endeavours. With our ally and biggest supporter, Jasmina Stošić, we have conducted participatory research on many topics. Our community is given a voice and a say, thanks to her.

Lastly, we are proud of our personal growth as activists, and of the efforts we have made to allow ourselves and our understanding of advocacy to grow. Every activist civil society organization goes through many phases and faces many obstacles.  

We have weathered many storms with parent autism organisations and within our own organisation. We came out of those experiences wiser and humbler. We have learned to ask for help when needed and not let our anger and trauma hinder the importance of the message we are trying to communicate. We are proud of ourselves. 

A stack of purple AAC brochures in Croatian language with a speech-bubble text reading "I ja imam nešto za reći!" ("I also have something to say!") lies in the foreground, while a colourful communication board with picture symbols and words is spread out and slightly out of focus in the background on a table.
AAC is one of ASK’s main areas of advocacy work. AAC brochures shown say “I also have something to say!” (“I ja imam nešto za reći!”) in Croatian.

How does participation in EUCAP contribute to your mission?  

Participating in EUCAP’s projects connects us with the wider autistic community, exposes us to new ideas, approaches, and projects, and offers excellent opportunities for networking with other autistic-led organizations and activists. It has given us a chance to learn a lot, travel, and meet and learn from seasoned activists and wonderful human beings. We value the feeling of being seen and heard in the bigger picture, even as a small country and a small community within the EU landscape. EUCAP helps us with that. 

What difficulties or challenges does your organization face?   

Croatia is still a country where self-advocacy is nearly non-existent and one that has a very outdated view and treatment of autism. It’s difficult for our voices to be heard and accepted. Luckily, we do have allies who work with us and help us. 

Other challenges come from the inside of the community: we have kicked off the work on the importance of self-advocacy in Croatia but to successfully continue we need to have more young autistic people joining the effort willing to do advocacy work.  

What are your main goals for the coming years? Are there new initiatives in development?   

Our main goal is to educate and transfer our skills and knowledge to younger generations of autistic people and to slowly leave the bulk of advocacy work to them. We find that it is important for the health of the organisation and beneficial to our mission. There comes a time when every activist must learn to step back with grace, continuing to offer support while allowing younger generations to lead and define what is important to them. 

In the immediate future—the next few years—we plan to build on our previous successes: organize the conference, do more for accessible culture, and widen our network and partnership with other civil society organisations. 

Large group of adults and children gathered for a picnic in a wide green park under a large, old tree. People sit and stand on blankets spread across the grass, talking and spending time together. Several colorful balloons—blue, pink, yellow, purple, and green—float above the group. Strollers are parked nearby, and a forested tree line borders the open field in the background under a partly cloudy sky.
In 2020, ASK initiative started hosting Autistic Picnic meet ups for Autism Pride Day. They are always held in Maksimir park, under the 600 year old oak tree named Gramps.

Some daydreaming is allowed! We would like to lay the foundation for autistic-led youth advocacy camps (like Crip Camp), body doubling services for autistic adults, and self-advocacy academy for all disabled people. But for that, we will need help and support from non-autistic people, other CSOs, and local authorities. 

Is there anything else you would like to share with the other member organizations of EUCAP?   

Organize, connect, and build communities of change! We’d like to finish with key tenets of Angela Davis’s approach to organizing and social change (drawn from her book Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement). We find them appropriate and inspiring: 

  • Teach, learn, and disseminate the socio-historical conditions and foundations of structural inequalities in movements through advocacy and organizing. 
  • Focus on grassroots organizing that involves the most affected. 
  • Every change that has happened has come as a result of mass movements, not through symbolic individuals.
  • Connect; build transnational solidarity.
  • The future lies in informed young people. 

Thank you, Kosjenka, Zrinka and ASK!  

ASK at a glance
Name: ASK – Autism, Neurodiversity and Self-advocacy Society/Udruga za autizamiostaleneurodivergentnosti, samozastupanjeikultururazličitosti
Country: Croatia
Year established: Citizens’ initiative: 2018, officially registered: 2022
Staff/membership: 4 board members, plus 32 members and volunteers
Target group: Autistic adults and family members of autistic people
Core values: Autistic self-advocacy grounded in human rights
Communication: Website,Facebook
Funding: Membership fees and occasional donations and projects


Previous EUCAP Member Interviews
Maria Ivănescu — suntAutist Romania
Viera Hincová – A-Centrum Slovakia 
Kabie Brook – ARGH Scotland
Carmen Molina – CEPAMA Spain