It's a small act to raise awareness for children with autism and funds for Pablo's family. We found out today why so many across various sectors wore blue:

Students, government departments, NGO's and private businesses and the general public countrywide wore the color blue today to show their support for 6 year old Gabriel Pablo Orellano, an autistic Stella Maris student who tragically drowned on Monday after wandering out of the school compound and making a two mile trek to the Hangar area.

Here at Belize Elementary School, they set up a backdrop so students and parents can take pictures and share to spread awareness. Their principal says that they were motivated to offer their support as a school community.

Majiba Sharp, Principal, Belize Elementary School
"We saw the flyer yesterday and as school community we thought it was extremely important to just show our support for the family of Gabriel, and also for the school because as a we know it was very tragic and things do happen in the blink of an eye and we just wanted to show support for everybody who is hurting right now and that's the family, that's our community and that's that school family as well, so from one school family to his family and to the school family at Stella Maris we just wanted to show our support and we always participate in whatever initiatives we think are very important and autism awareness is extremely important. We do have some students here who are on the spectrum so we know we know how important it is for a community to come together and be supportive of these families who have learning challenges and so on."

And here at Holy Redeemer while students could not wear blue, one teacher took up the initiative to make ribbons for her students, highlighting the importance of raising awareness

Selma Lynch, Teacher, Holy Redeemer School
"I just thought of the little boy Gabriel and I thought come on seeing the news with everybody walking and seeing him running and nobody took the privilege to say why is this little boy by himself, why is he running around? So when I heard the news I just got very emotional. I have kids and it could have been me it could have been anybody else so when we saw the post about wear blue today we knew we didn't have rags day so I said okay since we don't have rags day I'm going to do ribbons for my students to show sympathy that we are sympathising with them showing sympathy to the little boy and send condolences to his family because I know its very hard. At our school we have a lot of special students so it could have been from any other school, it couldn't have been from only Stella Maris so I just took the initiative to say okay we are going to show support and wear blue and instead of wearing colour clothes I decided we can wear blue ribbons to show you know sympathy and that we can feel what the parents are going through as well."

And for other civilians and advocates, they expressed the need to not only raise awareness but also ensure that something like this never happens again

Ashley Longford, Student Advocate
"This is such an important and heartfelt situation that has happened in the student community and you know as a child who lost his life, for me having on this blue brings awareness that we need to understand what is autism all about know that it is something you need to respect because I find that we as a society we are not being, like I would say as a village not really caring for others and not showing the support that we need so I think having on this blue colour and showing respect is much needed right now. As somebody who was advocating and still advocating for students' wellbeing, it's needed because one we need to show more training and show more knowledge about the situation."

Andre Pitts, Business man
"Well it certainly a tragedy one that stands out from other incidents and this one is really devastating and so you just as a community I think everyone is grieving and I think its a nice thing to come together and show that we are hurt by this and we want to do things differently, however we can in whatever roles we play to avoid any tragedy like this from recurring."

"Well here at old river we didn't advertise any official blue for Gabriel camp gain but customers have been coming in with blue, staff as well and so that makes me ever more happy to know that at a personal level without any call to action from us is something I've seen all over the city and I guess all over the country and I that is a nice thing to see."