When it opens in 2022, the new Rainbow Centre campus will feature an area modelled on real-world environments such as shops and other community spaces. The new campus will be able to serve 300 students with autism aged between seven and 18.
Dubbed Social Town, this environment in the new campus, which will cater to students with autism, allows for “authentic learning” and helps ease its students’ transition after they graduate, said a spokesman for the special needs school.
They include Seeds Cafe at the Rainbow Centre campus in Margaret Drive, which helps prepare students for work opportunities in the food and beverage industry.
A charity golf event at the Singapore Island Country Club yesterday (27 Sept) raised $600,000 for the new campus. The event also saw artwork by four Rainbow Centre students auctioned off for $138,288, which will also go towards the new campus.
One of the artists is 18-year-old Noah Tan, who has been accepted into a visual arts certificate programme offered by the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and Very Special Arts Singapore, a non-profit organisation for people with disabilities.
According to the Government’s 2016 Enabling Masterplan, which outlined plans to create a more inclusive society for those with disabilities, one in 150 children in Singapore has autism.
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Source: The Straits Times, 28 September 2018