Randa Habelrih is the founder and director of Autism MATES.
She is a passionate advocate and voice for those living on the spectrum. Randa is an award winning speaker, author, autism advocate and mother of an amazing young man with autism.
Her work has been recognised internationally, having won Gold in the ‘Women Helping Women’ category and Silver for ‘Best New Product or Service’ for MATES in the 2017 International Women in Business Stevie Awards. She also received a Women’s Economic Forum award in 2019.
Randa created the MATES programmes on the premise that we all crave a sense of belonging and need to be connected socially.
MATES is an acronym for Mates Assisting To Engage Socially.
School MATES, the flagship programme, is a peer led, anti-bullying and social inclusion initiative for high schools.
Other projects under the MATES umbrella include:
ModelMATES
MATES4Monday
BestMATES
The next project for MATES is still in the ‘dreams’ stage, but dreams can come true and Randa invites you to join her in helping make the MATES Café dream, a reality.
Randa is passionate about changing the standards of social inclusion of our young people on the spectrum but she is most proud of the fact that her son, who she was told would never talk, is now advocating for himself and his peers, and is a sought-after keynote speaker.