Dorna Centre is an NGO registered by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and recognized by the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, training children and adults with Autism. Dorna Centre offers individual care and education to children & young adults with autism.

Dorna Centre was setup to give people with autism in Uganda the same social, educational and employment opportunities that other people take for granted.

Dorna Centre currently supports 12 children and young adults with mostly severe autism.  Dorna Centre accepts children and young people with autism aged 6 to 25. Through a day and boarding programme, Dorna Centre provides continuing education opportunities and supported living arrangements for young people aged between 6 and 25, as well as a community outreach service.
Dorna Centre is the first facility solely dedicated to autism in Uganda.

Dorna Centre works to generate awareness in the media, with parents, schools, care-givers in order to increase their understanding of autism. Dorna Centre also serves as the coordinating centre for the Association of Parents for Children with autism in Uganda.

The centre is transforming the lives of children by equipping them with vocational skills, which they will later benefit from when they become independent adults, offering speech therapy and counselling.

The Centre is also actively lobbying government and legislators to make sure children and adults with autism gain access to basic support. Most Ugandans stigmatize people with autism and many find themselves misunderstood, isolated/locked away with worsening mental health, financial hardship and reduced chances of a good life. Most of the parents of our students are single mothers whose husbands abandoned them and disowned their children with autism.So they find themselves stuck with an autistic child who requires a lot of special expensive care. Dorna Centre is trying to help but we also constantly find ourselves unable to deal with some of the challenges of running such an institution without sufficient funding and capacity.

Autism affects people differently and that’s why our autism care services are different for everybody. We take pride in being the only centre in Uganda dedicated exclusively to autism.

Our aim is to help individuals with autism to achieve their goals;

  • To be part of a community
  • To learn new skills
  • To get a job
  • Or to move into their own home or specialist autism care homes.

To develop support services for autism we need to know what works for each individual; day to day problems, things that they enjoy, their strengths and weaknesses and what they want to do with their lives.

Focus of Intervention

Programming focuses on improving the following areas:

  • • Attention and Cooperation
  • • Motivation for Learning
  • • Verbal Behavior/ Communication Skills
  • • Self-help and Toileting
  • • Play and Leisure Skills
  • • Social Interaction
  • • Supplemental Academic Programming
  • • Other Developmentally Appropriate Skills

Programming may also focus on reducing challenging behaviors, such as:

  • • Non compliance
  • • Self-Injurious-Behavior
  • • Tantrums
  • • Stereotypy
  • • Transitioning Difficulties
  • • Other Problematic or Disruptive Behaviors

We ensure each child receives a seamless and consistent program of instruction with integrated services.

The Dorna Centre advocates for the rights and interests of people with ASD, and endeavors to ensure that they have access to quality services appropriate for their unique needs. The Dorna Centre is doing this by providing Early Intervention Services, running a program for children who are without access to educational services, facilitating parent support groups, working with the local education and health services, providing training, creating access to appropriate information on Autism and lobbying