Hi, it's been so long since we last posted here. We progressed a lot since our last update, it's time to catch everything up now.
So we did not get an official reply from Shelter Homes till then, and we decided that it would be better if we just embark on liaising with an alternative NGO instead.
Guess what? Tomorrow is the actual day that we're going to carry out the first few hours of our 30-hour social engagement practicals!
Here's the place that we're going to tomorrow. IQ70plus.
It's such a lovely shelter isn't it.
[A little bit about IQ70plus here. Writing about it soon. ]
Since IQ70plus is a shelter for mentally challenged children, I decided to prepare myself mentally too for what is coming tomorrow. Google had always been my best pal so naturally I Googled about this shelter and visited its official site to read up a lil' bit about them. Their webpage is a very pleasant looking one, and it didn't took me much trouble to reach their page of introducing all the residents of the shelter. This page listed down some basic information about every one of them. There are 40 residents, their age ranged from 6 to 51 years old.
Most of them are as claimed, mentally challenged. Not many of them are children though. Some of them are already grown ups. Some of them are mentally challenged because they had serious case of fever when they were babies. Some of them fell and knocked their head when they were infants. One of them is hyperactive. One of them tends to self-hurt. One of them doesn't like wearing clothes and tends to tear the clothes off if he finds any on himself. Something in me made sure I read everything available about every one of them.
There are also 3 pages telling stories of 3 children exclusively. Three children with three different stories that are equally heart-shattering. Each of them are here for a reason. They certainly did not choose to, but this is probably the only best alternative for them at the moment.
There's this sentence in one of the paragraphs:
"The story of a single parent and a retarded child. This is so familiar to us, but it actually happens, right around us. No one had chosen to become the characters of this story."I could literally hear my heart shattering into countless pieces. No one chose to, but they were chosen to.
How lucky I must be to be chosen by God to become who I am today. Remember the times I complained about having too much homework and too little time to sleep? Remember the times that I skipped classes? Remember the times that threw away food leftovers without batting an eye? Remember the times that I thought I felt empty to live in this big city? I couldn't help but question myself who is the retarded one for not being contented of what I have.
I was so filled with empathy towards them. However I guess it's best to not feel pity of them. They do not need our pity. They don't wish to be treated specially, they crave to be normal. No one is born identical, we should just embrace their difference and accept for who they are. Offer them help wherever possible, because what's this world without compassion and helping each other?
Earlier today we met up too to do the final preparations and some trials for the activities tomorrow. Here's my hand after trying out my very own session - Finger-printing tree!
Here's my very own beautiful finger-printed tree collage. May the kids grow like a tree, slow but steady!
This was produced based on my own creativity and artistic sense, I don't know how what will the children produce soon haha.
This was produced based on my own creativity and artistic sense, I don't know how what will the children produce soon haha.
Tomorrow I'm going to meet them in person and interact with them.It's a chance for me to care for the forgotten lot by God, a chance to express my humanity, to leave some warmth in this big cold city.
Be kind, be nice, don't discriminate, we're here to help. May everything goes smoothly tomorrow =)
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