Marc-Antoine Cangou

I’m Marie-Pierre Nisus and I’m Marc’s sister and carer. Marc was born with Autism. as a family we always did our best to accommodate his needs. We all came to the UK from France in 1994.  

Before starting at WAES we were at Waltham Forest College but shortly after we had to make a change, and we were looking for similar activities for Marc to take part in. Marc was part of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Equal People Mencap an organisation that ensures the health, safety and well-being of carers, volunteers and staff. Here he had Dance on Mondays.  

Marc has been at WAES for 7 academic years, and he has only just discovered a passion for Graphic Design, he enjoys the creative aspect such as designing newspapers, leaflets, books and more this allows him to be creatively free and take ownership of his own designs which is a motivation to becoming more independent. In fact Marc’s greatest achievement last year is that he created a lot of design work.

To sum up the teaching for this course I can say everyone has been supportive. As a carer it can be difficult handling Marc’s challenging behaviour sometimes, so I don’t come into the college on those days we stay at home, but WAES understands. 

Marc’s time at WAES has helped him learn to write and count but also helped him become a little more independent. Before Marc would do what, you told him to do but now, he is able to say if he doesn’t want to do an activity in class.

I have had my ups and downs and it’s so important for Marc to have some kind of structure to keep him active, I am now alone as my older sister recently passed away and I will need the help even more so I can take a break during the day to get myself together and WAES is the place that I rely on for this.