RR Padang – Report by Fauziah Rahmi, VDMS grantee from State University of Padang

Every student has individual learning abilities. While in many cases, one of the goals of a comprehensive education is inclusion of all students of a particular age or grade level into the same classroom, at times some students’ needs are better served in a more focused setting. It is not always productive or accurate to combine a range of learning styles and needs under a single category. A child with a hearing loss does not have the same needs as a student who has been diagnosed with autism. This is one of the reasons why the big family of VDMS Padang visited Special Need School 1 Pauh, Padang on Wednesday (16 December 2015). This school provides education for children with physical, psychiatric and learning disorders or disabilities and also emotional or behavioral problems.

 

What we wanted to get at the time was playing and sharing together with our young brothers and sisters with special needs. We gathered in one big room nearly 30 students with special needs. We breaked out into some groups and then we provided a small stage for students’ performance as singing, poetry reading, drama and story telling. We tried to improve their self-confidence to perform in public. What we got was amazing. Each group performed bravely and every student performed confidently. But more importantly they looked happy and enjoyed what they were doing. What we have done was a form of happines, we found happiness inside ourselves easily by watching them sing songs or read poetry with such a broad smile on their faces. We do not see them as disabled students for they have everything to make them as equally capable as we are. At the end, we gave each of them a small package of gift containing a book, pen, ruler, chocolate, etc. They looked so happy and cheerful.

 

There were three alumni who took part in this event, they are Afdal, Dios, Rezky and then five grantees; Randi, Fuji, Rifa, Elfi and Gelora. This event teaches us that it is important to share what we have with these special students as we have already given been great blessing from above. We realized that we got more than what we gave that day. This act of gratefulness lets us learn from others as human beings and to encourage one another towards a better life with a brighter future. What we have done was just a small deed but it came from our humanity.