About a week after Ms Katherine Sumantri was born, she came down with a fever that would not break for days. Suspecting meningitis, her doctor put the newborn on a course of antibiotics, even before any test results came in.
The doctor’s guess was right, and Ms Sumantri made a full recovery – escaping complications that the condition can bring about.
“My parents told me that if we had waited, worse things could have happened to me. Growing up, they reminded me of how grateful I should be,” says the 25-year-old.
This has compelled her to choose a career where she can give back. Born to a Japanese mother and an Indonesian-Chinese father who is now a Singapore citizen, Ms Sumantr says she is drawn towards working with children with special needs.
After obtaining her bachelor’s degree in special education from Gonzaga University in Washington, the United States, she is now doing a master’s in speech-language pathology at Columbia University.
“I find that people here tend to stray from difficult topics such as disability, suicide and mental health. But in the US, there are many social-media influencers with disabilities who use their platform to talk about these issues,” she says.
This drove her to launch (en)able in May, an online platform that presents facts, debunks myths and showcases real-life accounts of disabilities such as autism and Down syndrome.
Ms Sumantri, who intends to gain work experience in the US before returning to Singapore for the long term, says she wants to bring about a more open discussion about disability, where people can freely ask questions, educate themselves and share that information with others.
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Source: The Straits Times, 29 August 2020