Hey Babes! ADHD Babes - Your Spring Round Up 2024!

Your Spring 2024 Round Up Newsletter

Hey Babe!

ADHD BABES is a support group for Black Women and Black Non-binary people with ADHD.✨
Clinical diagnosis not required.

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admin@adhdbabes.com, info@adhdbabes.com or podcast@adhdbabes.com

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What’s Been Happening?

Our GoFundMe Campaign

Our GoFundMe Campaign has raised £2804 so far! We are so grateful to everyone who has donated towards the cause!

We would like to raise at least another £720 so we can pay for 1 ADHD babe a month to get a free ADHD diagnosis throughout the rest of 2024!

If you would like to donate and support a babe to get a life changing assessment, please click here!

Outreach & Awareness Building

Mediabrands Panel

Viv was part of a panel with Mediabrands and she got some great feedback:

"We loved having you and hearing more about the wonderful things you're accomplishing! 10/10 would highly recommend Viv as a panellist, guest speaker for a company/industry event"

Exeter University Workshop

Viv ran a session at the University of Exeter as part of Neurodiversity Celebration Week 2024. Here is some of the feedback she got:

"It was the highlight of my week"
"your session was an absolute highlight for me just from the perspective of it being what this is about for me – celebratory, aware of issues, well informed lead by and for neurodivergent people tackling real needs."

Not Your Average Entrepreneur

Viv was a speaker at NYAE‘s Implementation Day in April. Here is some of the feedback she got:

“This is really great :)”
”So useful”
”This is brilliant”
”Yes I really liked the visuals of the talk it’s good to see a strategy in images and not a 10 page word document”.

Keep Smashing it Viv!

Community Collaborations

Managing ADHD Symptoms

We had a 2 part workshop with an ADHD Coach: Jannett Morgan, who facilitated conversations around how we can manage our ADHD both at work and in our personal lives. Here is some feedback we got from the sessions:

“It was great to see a black coach/teacher, so it was culturally specific in the material and helps to make us feel heard, seen and acknowledged.”

“We were able to take away practical and tangible things. Jannett is obviously very good at her Job. She comes across as very knowledgeable and empathetic.”

Time Management

We had a workshop with Karen Burke who facilitated a session around Time Management & how despite our ADHD, we could utilise time to our benefit. Check out what the babes had to say:

“I liked the interactive nature of the session”

“i saw time management differently, aligned to goals which gave it more meaning”

Scratch Night

We took up space on Thursday 28th from 6:30pm at the Red Room at The Albany in Deptford on a magical Spring night in March, to put on our first full Scratch Night.

A scratch night is an opportunity for artists and performers to share their new and old works with a supportive audience. We had some talented babes in our midst! Here is some feedback from the night as well as some photos! Check out our socials for more content!

“It was a warm and welcoming space, a safe place to enjoy new talent and meet wonderful people.”

“Everyone was so friendly, I could be myself, I felt welcomed. It was nice to enjoy creative work.”

We can’t wait for the next one!

April Link Up - The Time is Now Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery

We went to the National Portrait Gallery in April to experience the “The Time is Always Now” exhibition. It was a curation of some of the most powerful figurative works by modern Black artists working today. Getting to be in this space with some of the members of our community was really special. We are looking forward to many more socials with the Babes!

Some feedback we received:

“I cannot fully express how grateful I am for someone posting about this community on LinkedIn. I could feel I wasn't masking even half as much as I do. I got home feeling what I can only describe as normal, not replaying the evening for what I said that was wrong etc. That rarely happens for me in group situations. You are all such beautiful people and it was a privilege to meet every single one of you who was there yesterday. A total unexpected blessing.”

ADHD & Self Esteem Course

We launched our first 5-week self esteem Psycho-education Course and the response has been fantastic.

“I feel more accepting of myself, knowledge that I'm on the right path, I give myself more grace, less judgement of myself, more compassion and celebration of myself like I give to others, understanding my ADHD and how it can affect my self worth and how I view myself so I can work with my mind rather than against it, I feel much more connected to other ADHD Babes.”

“having the knowledge to understand why things are the way they are, that I'm not alone, in itself was is very affirming, helpful and empowering, additionally being given ADHD, and intersectional black/female life skills and tools has made a world of difference, in terms of how I view myself and my relationship with others”.

Emergency Aid Fund

We were able to launch our Emergency Aid Fund from our membership fees, to offer to our members. We were able to fund 3 Babes experiencing financial hardship. Here is what one of them had to say about it. Needless to say, we are so heartened by the words they expressed:

“Knowing that someone, people, an organisation has taken the care to think about, create and seek to sustain this fund as a buffer for when systems fail black disabled folks meant i felt protected, fortified and permitted some rest. This fund paired with an additional piece of support around future work I will be doing with ADHD Babes allowed me to receive help in a way that is feeling different for my self esteem. I didn’t feel judged or as if I was incapable etc for needing support.”

Founder’s Letter - Existing and Resisting in a Dystopia

Read some reflections on the last few months from our Founder, Vivienne!

Founder’s Letter

Our Blog

Spotlight: “The ADHD Tax”

Living with ADHD can be a daily challenge.

For Black women, these challenges can be magnified by societal pressures and systemic biases.

As a project/programme manager and the host of the Divine Enigma podcast on neurodivergence in the workplace, Sarah Olaifa has seen firsthand how ADHD can have a significant financial impact. Click here to read more!

ADHD Wins!

Our Babe LiLi had their textile exhibition this week in London! We are so proud of them!

It’s open until 5 pm on Saturday 29th of June. For more info, see the Bulletin.

Neuromancers - A Friend to My Mind Photo Day!

We put together a pop up photoshoot set in Wood Green for Black neurodivergent people in conjunction with the Neuromancer’s in April.

As Black Neurodivergent people it can be challenging to be friends to our own minds, whilst dealing with various forms of ableism - which includes historic neglect of Black neurodivergent people - this day aimed to offer a space of healing, joy and collective storytelling through photography. It was a beautiful day!

Funding

Network for Social Change

We are thankful for a grant given to us by the Network of Social Change. We will be using it to fund wellbeing activities throughout the year! You can find out more about what they do on their website by clicking here.

United Friends & Family Campaign (UFFC)

Pitched by 2 of our support group hosts for us to continue hosting advocacy through art workshops. Plug into community to get involved. in the mean time, here is a quote from one of the hosts about what it felt like to pitch to the UFFC (United Friends & Family Campaign) :

“Last autumn myself and a fellow adhdbabe facilitated a creative workshop for members. Following this we were encouraged and supported to write an application to the UFFC Youth Wing Fund. The UFFC is an important organisation in the work to support black life. So I was nervous but interested in applying to a space where the political importance of supporting young neuro-distinct black women and non-binary folk could be frankly contextualised.

The opportunity to create and discuss will hopefully provide some moments of respite, connection and highlight community members' rich voices, insights and imagination toward disability justice. Working together, the accessible application form and support from Viv were helpful for communicating how we hope to keep facilitating creative expression around disability justice from members of our community.

We plan to hold 3-4 themed art workshops this autumn culminating in an intimate exhibition or zine according to participants’ preferences.”

Join our Community!

We have reached a huge milestone with our membership and now have over 200 registered members! We are so grateful to the community for their collective contributions that allow us to put on our events for free while paying babes on the team.

If you are a Black Woman or Non-binary person with ADHD and you haven't joined as an official member yet, now is the time! Check out our members’ perks and information on our tier system below:

If you are an ally and want to support our work financially, you can donate to our Gofundme or set up regular donations on our Paypal

Join our Membership Here!

Our Team

In April, our babe Shauna officially took on the role of a Director for ADHD Babes.

She will continue leading our Podcast but also has so many wonderful ideas to expand how we use multi-media within our storytelling, community engagement and awareness building.

She said "It's so exciting to have the opportunity to help spread more love and joy in helping our community. The podcast and the whole ADHD Babes community is so dear to me, I won't let you down!!"

We are so excited about all the future possibilities!

Upcoming Events!

These are some of the events and workshops coming up between now and the end of June. If you would like to come along, ensure you are following us so you can book as soon as they go live!

Knit & Sip - 05/07
Benefits Information Session - 11/07
Nature Walk with Touch Grass 14/07
Benefits Support Day (In Person) - 20/07

Find our Events here!