Gareth Ho, 17, looks like any normal teenager, but gets around in a motorized wheelchair. Some people find this unacceptable. Strangers have told him that, at his age, he should be walking around instead of being in a wheelchair. They do not realize that he has muscular dystrophy, a disease that has sapped most of the strength from his limbs, sparing only his wrists and fingers.
Despite these bad experiences, he has met more kind people than unkind, and is driven by an aspiration to be a Paralympian playing boccia, a ball game for people with severe physical disabilities. Gareth is now one of three “ambassadors” with physical, sensory or intellectual disabilities whose stories will be told in an upcoming mass media campaign.
It is part of the larger See the True Me movement, organised since last year by the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) and the Tote Board, with the aim of shifting public attitudes towards disabled people from acceptance to inclusion, and see their strengths rather than disabilities.
To raise awareness, the NCSS’ campaign this year will also feature largely free events organised by 11 social service organisations over the next two months.
NCSS chief executive Sim Gim Guan said: “Inclusion is seeing persons with disabilities as persons first, and not defined by their disability. We need to move beyond pity and tolerance to truly including persons of different abilities in our lives.”
Read more here.
Source: The Straits Times, 8 September 2017