In general, I feel that there has been an increasing amount of acceptance for people with disabilities. For instance, more areas have been improved to provide basic accessibility; more buses have been converted to wheel-chair friendly buses and more. As for inclusion, more schools have been upgraded to provide wheel-chair friendly facilities. Through the small talks with the clients and their mothers, I also realized that Singapore has been quite diverse in having various organizations for different needs, opening up more opportunities for them than i thought it would be, for them to participate just like any of us.
Hence, I thought that this is a great step done, however, to a certain limit. Why did I say so? There have been many instances when I witnessed people staring real hard at people with disabilities on the bus. I even overheard “TSK” etc as the person requires more time to get up the bus. In my opinion, there should be more done to educate the public on the common prejudice and how to handle them.
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After working with the AWWA clients during the pre-yep, I had gained a better understanding on them. It was an opportunity to be able to serve a client. I observed that he was not eating and hence approached him. It was then that I had found out that he required feeding. Initially, the food was cut too big a piece and I realized that I had difficulty bringing the food to him. Moreover, my hand was shaking. Thus, I had the food cut smaller. But what made me a little guilty was when I was feeding him water. This is so as I could see him choking a little and yet telling me that he is fine. I don’t know how much to tilt the bottle and he was really struggling. It was then when I found out from a client’ mother that it would have been better if there was straw. OMG! It didn’t occur to me that other than ensuring that the activity is not too tedious and is able to include people with physical disabilities to participate, this is also another area that we should be concern about.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Anthony, that despite the struggling that he has to undergo because of my feeding, yet he is always encouraging and thanking me, assuring me that he is alright.
To sum up, I had gained a little more understanding about people with disabilities based on their overall needs. This would definitely help in the near future when planning activities for them. Besides, I see how important a caregiver is to them, as they are the ones who always encourage and care for their children; no matter how tired they will be, they are always smiling.