Buddies’ Experience

On 21.2.2020, Youth Beyond Boundaries collaborated with the What About Friendship team in order to organise this Buddies’ Experience programme. The highlight or the key point of this event is inviting some students from Sri Eden School, Cheras to make this event a special one. This Sri Eden School is a daycare system for children who have special needs.

Sri Eden School was established in the year 2000 by three determined women. The first speech therapist was recruited in the year 2012. Since then, this school has been receiving love and support by parents, sponsors and also other NGOs. The credit for this success has to be given to the Principal of Sri Eden, Ms.Amy. She is known as the ‘Iron Lady’ due to her confidence in bringing this school to incredible heights. But she couldn’t have done this alone. Even an Iron lady needs a team in order to save the world. So, with that we can say that Ms.Amy had her team as a support system and this drove Sri Eden School to success.

Ms.Amy and her team

As we jump into the details of the Buddies’ Experience programme, the first activity was called as the’Circle Time’. The participants were assigned to their respective buddies. The buddies have to hold hands with the participants and form a big circle. When they were holding hands, I could feel a bond being formed between them. Please don’t ask me whether it was Van der Waal forces or electrostatic forces (Types of bonds in chemistry). As the music (The circle song – I’ve never heard of this song before, but trust me, it was fun). The participants and the buddies were asked to imitate the ‘Circle Song’ by following the instructions mentioned in the song itself.

Circle Time

The ‘Circle Song’ lead the participants and their buddies to sit in a big circle. The participants were given a sheet of paper filled with questions. The committee didn’t want to bore the participants with words, so the answers were represented by pictures. The participants were eager to respond to the questions asked in the paper. They were questioned about their own interests, what makes them feel happy and which emoji represents the mood they are in today? Despite all these feelings, some of the participants wanted to finish answering the questions fast so that they could scout around for the activity booths set up for them. There were students who went into their hyperactive mood and started to go overboard but then their teachers stepped in and saved the day by asking them to calm themselves down and asked them to count until number 10. Their help was also needed whenever the situation got out of hand. But the point is, the dedication and determination that those teachers have no doubt aided in reducing the stigma between normal children and children with special needs.

Before talking about the activity booths, I would like to start on talking about the learning strategies practiced by the teachers in the school and how were applied in the activities held during this event. In Sri Eden , children with conditions like Down syndrome, autism and hyperactive conditions are more prominent. This makes it easier for the teachers to understand their students in-depth and at a better scale. During the event, there were 5 stations that suited the categories used to determine the practices given to the students in order to brush up their learning skills and also living skills. In Sri Eden , they used colours, music , games and healthy eating habits. So for this event, the booths were, Stacking Cups station, Dancing station , Painting station, Craft station and Colour Matching station.

As I was taking a quick glance at their website ( http://srieden.org/ ), I found out that the children who are studying are obviously not normal children, but they are capable of excelling more than normal children and do things that sometimes normal children can’t even think of. This makes them special. These sort of miraculous things will only happen if only they get sufficient support from their parents, their teachers and not forgetting the society.

Children with special needs have to be taught the basics of basics when it comes to attitude, their eating habits and the way they interact with people. I was given the opportunity to interview almost all the teachers who presented themselves on that day. As we all know , our attitude is more important than the education that we obtain. According to Ms. Irene (Teacher at Sri Eden School/ part-time child therapist), whether the child is normal or not , his or her attitude has to be taken care of by their parents. If that happens, the teachers will have an easy life at school . Even though she mentioned that it is the parents’ job to correct their behaviour at home, she is never reluctant to do it at school. She used methods like giving pep talks and letting the children know how lucky and special they are by using motivational words. Ms. Irene also mentioned that a child’s upbringing has to be complemented by healthy eating habits too. During one of her therapy sessions, she witnessed a kid having minor twitches that was caused by a poor diet and also too much of engagement with electronic gadgets. After following her advice, his condition became better and his eyes did not twitch anymore.

Not only hyperactive situations, tantrums also can be solved by the teachers. Some students preferred to be alone for a moment, but then when they were convinced to go and try out some activities, they tend to show tantrum swings. Tantrum is a normal behaviour in children whether the child is normal or not. It all boils down to them being kids and as I mentioned earlier, it’s normal behaviour. What varies is the way of handling those tantrums. At times, tantrums can be caused by taking something away from that child or the child’s demands have not been granted. If we talk about children with special needs having tantrums, the teachers tend to sit back and start analysing the cause of the tantrums. After the analysing process has ended, they implement ways correlated to the causes of those tantrums and make them go back on track, in this case, make the participants to get involved in the activities. This whole situation has been proven by the statements given by Ms.Bertha, Mrs.Raja and Ms.Margeret Cecilia. These three teachers mentioned that the preference of a child is what leads them to demanding something. The most suitable example that was given was when children choose what food to eat. Despite being demanding at times, the children never fail to impress the hearts of their teachers by remembering the most powerful ‘word of courtesy’ which is thank you.

Despite being pillars of strength to Sri Eden School, the teachers also have to have their own quality time with their family. So far, when I was going through the interview segments with the teachers, I realised that none of the teachers ever mentioned that it was hard for them to balance their time between family, profession and their own self-love time. They tend to feel happy and grateful for what has been gifted to them and they are setting that mindset in the minds of the children. Speaking about the children, the teachers are glad that parents have faith in them but not dependent on them because the parents are aware of what are their responsibilities towards their children.

As we leave learning skills aside, we must agree to the fact that a special needs child has to learn not only their learning skills but also their living skills. This statement was given by Ms.Lesya. This young teacher emphasised that living skills should be taught to older children so that they know how to handle themselves in a better when life throws any sorts of challenges at them.

In order to sum up this write up, I would like to quote Kumon’s evergreen philosophy by saying, ‘Every child is a gifted child’. Each child carries one important value of life. For the first time in my life, I’ve witnessed so many values of life standing right in front of me , yelling at me to embrace them. Every child that I saw today was like a story to me. I guess if I start writing on the hardships they went through, the achievements that were cherished and celebrated by their loved ones, each child will get the chance to understand how lucky and blessed they really are. Behind every tantrum, I saw smiles, I saw the real self hiding within them. I saw that if they were given a chance, they can become future successful people. The stepping stone for this is that every special needs child out there needs to be given sufficient support in any form (money, frequent visits to increase the engagement with the children and in-kind donations).

That’s all from me . Thanks!