• The mission of the Autistic Art - Smile Home Foundation is to improve the living conditions of children and adults with autism in Hungary, to promote their integration into society, and to develop the long-term, sustainable resources required for this.
• The foundation was established in 2007 by György Jaksity, chairman of the board of directors of Concorde Securities Ltd.
• The foundation supports 11 non-profit residential group homes in Hungary specialised to meet the needs of those living with autism and serving a total of 217 autistic young people.
• As part of our arts programme, we provide regular drawing sessions for autistic children and adults living in the group homes. We display the resulting creative works at exhibitions and put them up for bidding at charity auctions.
• The foundation is the sole privately financed national organisation to cooperates with practically every institution in Hungary that provides services for people with autism. In the past eight years, we have supported every non-profit group home in Hungary financially and with other means.
• The total support provided since 2007 to group homes for people with autism exceeds HUF 120 million.

The Autistic Art Arts Programme
• Many thousands of people in Hungary live in group homes and are practically invisible to the wider society. These include people living with autism who, although they are not capable of living independently, posses creative energy that is beyond dispute.
• The group homes do not have substantive resources to foster the creative development of talented young people. Through our arts programme, launched in 2010 under the leadership of artist Hajnalka Tarr, those who live in them can engage in art therapy and artistic development, and can also create works that have value on the art market.
• At present, weekly art sessions are organised in six group homes serving people with autism, with 60 autistic people regularly and actively participating.
• This has resulted in the creation of a unique and progressively increasing collection of several thousand drawings by autistic people, of which a professionally chosen selection appears on the autisticart.hu website (an English version is available at: www.autisticart.eu).
• Through Hungary's sole art therapy programme built around the visual thought processes of autistic people, we create a calmer and happier world in which they are able to open up and express themselves through their pictures.
• We exhibit the drawings and other creative works resulting from the art sessions at charity auctions and exhibitionss, while the most outstanding works appear on Autistic Art's branded fashion products, scarves, notebooks and sweatshirts.

Presented by: Müpa Budapest, Erste Bank