I saw this a few days ago but never had the opportunity to read it till today. I would like to share my own experience. Growing up, I had an aunt whos always a little bit different from the rest of us, while she was just slightly older, I only knew that she had attended a special school. And although we visited her family every festive season, shed always be made fun of because she was different and no one ever corrected us on this. Today, shes fully independent and holds her own job, earns her own living and buys her own stuff. Moving forward, in recent years, through the organization that I volunteer with, weve been doing a lot of engagement with youths who suffer from various physical and mental challenges. On my professional front, I actually perform at the MINDS School and get to interact with the students there. Through this experience, I learnt that being the caregiver is a 24/7 job and though looking after the youths could be extremely tiring, you also learn how to be patient and how to communicate non-verbally. Generally, Singaporeans are pretty friendly to let their children interact and play with one another and I assure you that these youths can be a bundle of joy once you understand how they express themselves. However, I found my experience a little bit different in the US. Perhaps because I wasnt a volunteer, I was considered hostile. You see, in my weekly commute to the university, there would be a day where I get to share it with these youths and their caregivers. What the caregivers would always do is to isolate the youths away from the general public, thus, cutting off any form of interaction. But on one occasion, I had the opportunity to sit beside one boy and we began having our own conversation. He unzipped his pouch and took out a piece of photo paper of what looked like a food menu and began pointing to a can of coke and sandwich. Thats when the magic happened. As we began to communicate, a caregiver stepped in to stop him, thinking that I was annoyed when I was really enjoying his company for my long commute. Only when I assured the caregiver that I was friendly (someone actually said, Hes FRIENDLY) did the conversation was allowed to continue and what ensued was a fruitful experience for me learning hand signals that hed use for sandwich and soda pop! The point Im making here is that there are times when I think as much as individuals like myself would like to interact and be involved in their lives, there may be times when others would treat them with hostility and this may be what causes caregivers to be protective of them and could also lead to many others being further isolated from opportunities to interact and have a better understanding. That said, humans are not scary but what a human does, can be scary.
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 02:03:14 +0000
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