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Ms Ama Amponsah Mensah, first runner-up, Ghana�s 2012 Most Beautiful, on Saturday launched a project on Autism and Intellectual Disability (AID). The project, an integrated programme, designed to provide research, create awareness, raise funds and advocate the inclusion of people living with intellectual disability and autism into mainstream society, was launched in Accra on Sunday. It also seeks to address the overwhelming concerns about autism and to urge society to ensure that affected people are always happy getting to live the life they wanted. Ms Mensah said the alarming trend of neglect and policy support inadequacies towards persons living with disabilities and the urgent need of immediate intervention to save a dying mass influenced her to embark on the project. Explaining the project rationale, she said, the era when an entire family could be thrown into a state of confusion just because a relation had been diagnosed with autism and intellectual disability, should be over. She said the AID project would encourage parents to accept the status of their wards and seek early help and also spearhead the need for such an individual to acquire vacation to be able to live moderate independent life. Ms Mensah said even though several initiatives had been embarked upon in the area of autism and intellectual disability, it was now time to consolidate the gains made and create an umbrella society to tackle the problem head on. Dr Abu Sakara Forster, the Convention People�s Party (CPP) Presidential candidate for 2012 elections said, people should accept persons living autism and intellectual disability rather than stigmatize against them �Stigmatization is common among Africans and must therefore be stopped,� he said and added that everyone had a role to play.