As a young student, David Flink was identified with dyslexia and ADHD. He sought role models who shared his experience, but often felt discouraged and alone. Although he struggled throughout his early schooling, David was determined to further his education and went on to obtain a bachelor’s degree in education and psychology from Brown University and a master’s degree in disability studies from Columbia University.

In 1998, David Flink and a group of students at Brown University set out on a mission that would become a movement: to help neurodiverse students like them not feel so alone, so broken, and so different in an education system not designed to meet their needs. At that time, learning disabilities were something most people either weren’t aware of or were ashamed of, something rarely talked about in families, schools, or popular culture, leading to a lack of identification and access to critical resources and support.

The idea was simple: connect elementary and middle school students with positive, near-peer role models and mentors each week who could relate to them, understand them, and with whom they could truly see “Eye to Eye”.

Over the last 25 years, the award-winning Eye to Eye Mentoring Program has grown to serve more than 12,000 students at more than 1,000 schools nationwide. Today, the Eye to Eye Mentoring Program continues to change students’ lives as a key program of The Neurodiversity Alliance, the world’s largest community of students who learn differently.