“Kindness is a language that a deaf can hear 

and a blind can see”

Social engagement taught me a lot of things while we as a group engaged and interacted with the disabled people. The foremost is being kind to them. I feel that I have learned a great deal about life with disabilities, and I think that some of my attitudes and ideas about disability have also changed. The things that I have learned vary widely, including new words and terms, issues specific to students with disabilities, the types of disability movement groups that exist, and specific information on certain disabilities, especially cerebral palsy. It's not uncommon to feel a bit uncertain talking to or interacting with someone who has a physical disability. Socializing with people with disabilities should be no different from any other socialization. And yes, Social Engagement course give me a way to socialize and interact with the disabled people.

By engaging with disabled people, I got to know what “disability” is actually means. Throughout the journey, I realised this thing: Disability is the inability to see ability. Most of the people out there are thinking of the “disability” as a big barrier for them to communicate and interact with the disabled one. The most important thing to know when interacting with people with disabilities is that they are people too, they are human being too and they are God’s creature too! In this, equity among disabled people and normal people is much important and should be concerned by all individuals.  

We had participated in a charity walk organized by the Faculty of Economics and Administration of University of Malaya dedicated to children with Cerebral Palsy. Before participating in this walk, I don’t even had listen the word “Cerebral Palsy”. I don’t know that there is a disability exist in this name. Through this charity walk, only then I realized there is a disease called cerebral palsy, which means congenital disorder of childhood that affects muscle tone, movement, motor skills which is the ability to move in a coordinated way. There is no cure for cerebral palsy, but we would make changes in their life by giving them a special treatment. I can say that this charity walk made a big impact within me where I understand and realized that the obstacles in the life of people with disabilities is even more tougher than what we as normal being going through. We with a perfect physical would always facing difficulties in facing some struggles. I just closed my eyes and asked myself: “Then? How would they do?” A walk of only 3kilometres made me to think that a group of 100 or 150 people is not enough to make a betterment in those people’s life. Every one of us and each and every individual should take concern to improve those people’s lifestyle gradually. It would rise a hope among the children towards a better life.

The most important thing that Social Engagement taught me is being thankful and grateful of what we are having now. Honestly, this course made a platform for me to engage with the disabled people out there and to learn more about their life. The one thing that I realized almost all the time during we spent our time with them is all that we should never treat them like people with disabilities but as normal human being but by giving them extra care in order to make them to feel fulfil. Don’t ever think that serving and helping them is burdening! Willingness to give them little may bring a great hope within them. That is the courage for them to live their life.

Over the past 14 weeks of this journey, I have learnt much about myself and other people and so I need to take a moment to reflect on my experiences and in essence how lucky I am to have the life that I do. So many people have to deal with so many more injustices than myself, which I can only begin to imagine the effect that this has. I have made the effort to learn about other sick and disabled people lives, to allow me to appreciate what others go through on a daily basis. This learning has made me realise that things are not always clean cut as they seem, leading to me having a greater empathy for people in different situations. I have done my learning through talking to people with disabilities by taking the Social Engagement course as an opportunity. I will be taking this as an experience to continue serving the people with disabilities no matter how. A high gratitude to be expressed to Social Engagement course.

With love,

Kirubha