I am part of the SUNDAC service. It is based on helping people between the age of 18-60 with a wide range of disabilities integrate into the community.

I have to admit I was really skeptical when signing up for this service. It wasn’t my first time interacting with people with disabilities because I used to do horse therapy for physically and mentally disabled children, but they were children and their parents were always present to help out in a tricky situation. For SUNDAC I  wasn’t sure how well I was going to be able to interact with the clients and I was scared of offending or hurting them because of something I did or said.

We sent the first few session in our group discussing what our clients needed and planning activities we could do with them. Just recently the SUNDAC clients started coming to school. Here we would help them order lunch, eat with them and then do some activities to get to know each other and build trust. I can really notice the difference between the interaction with them in our first session and now. They used to be quite shy and quite unwilling to participate in the activities and talk to us but now they love volunteering for games and always greet us excitedly. It really has changed my view on people with disabilities and made me realize that what we are doing is not only portant for them but also for us, the society.

These few session we have and are still doing in school are to build trust between us and help us students realize what we have to change when it comes to interaction with them. They are an essential part of the process oftheir integration into society because without knowing our clients we won’t be able to specifically target their needs.

The last time we got together we started devising a plan for our first “outing” together with the SUNDAC clients. Even if we are just going to hawkers to have lunch I know that for them it is an amazing experience and that really warms my heart.  

I couldn’t be more excited to see some genuine smiles and hear the laughing again because making such a big difference in someone’s life it is an amazing feeling I have barely ever felt before.