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Brampton Caledon Community Living (BCCL)
My year experience with BCCL has been an eye-opening one.
BCCL is a place where those with intellectual disabilities can gain knowledge and tools to become more independent people. BCCL offers programs such as cooking, sewing, swimming, furniture restoration, music classes, hiking, etc. Each day contains a morning program, lunch, followed by an afternoon program. Members of BCCL have their choice as to what program they would like to join for that day and can change programs the following week if they'd like. Each day contains a new blend of various programs that go out in the community.
During my time with BCCL, I got to experience 4 different programs. The first program was the library, where we would go to the nearest library, pick out some books, read and discuss various things about the books that we were reading at the time. One member surprised me when she read about 10 magazines and told us all about them in detail.
The second program was Khan Academy, where we would go onto Khan Academy and learn about different things. I had the pleasure of planning my own "Khan Academy", where I taught the members about my favourite subject ... the making of violins! They enjoyed it so much that the following week I expanded on it and discussed orchestras and their instrumentation. Which eventually led to how Vinyl Records were made in the 1920's vs. present day.
(Above) The Music Room. Here is where I was able to run a mini lecture on Orchestras and musical instruments
My Third program was called "Journalism", we would explore current events in Brampton and research them further through the internet. It was super interesting to learn about all the various things each person was into. One person loved to learn about biology, and there so happened to be an article about whales in one of the papers. We also happened to touch upon some cool recipes and crafts that we were able to use for the holiday Bazaar that BCCL hosts twice a year.
My fourth program was refurbishing and restoration. Here we would drive around the community looking for various furniture items (wooden chairs, wooden tables, etc.) and sand them down and paint them. It is really awesome to see members so engaged in working on restoring furniture and creating some beautiful things.
(Above) Some Handmade Holiday Gift tags we made (left) as well as Chocolate candy cane covered pretzels and Oreo's (right).
My Last program, was 100 Book Classics. Here, we would research classic novels (or strong films) such as "Oliver Twist", "The Great Gatsby", "Shawshank Redemption", etc. Upon which we would watch the movie and summarize main characters, points, moral of the story. I found that this was the most beneficial to me because I started to notice the music scores of the films and do my own personal research on the composers in the films and thought about how I could incorporate this into my own teachings.
One of my biggest questions when entering BCCL was "What can my role be?" I wanted to be able to do something meaningful for BCCL and not just observe. I wanted to engage in as many programs as I could. But not only did I participate and lead some of these programs, I also had people come to me to help them with their lunches (heating up the food, opening water bottles, or containers). This is probably one of the biggest events that happened to me at BCCL. I was so happy that everyone was comfortable with me to come to me for help when needed.
I had such a remarkable time at BCCL and learned a great deal of what it means to be apart of the community. I'd like to thank BCCL for welcoming me into their community and teaching me about how to push the limits of my own ideas for running workshops and the importance of removing the stigmas around people with developmental delays.
(Above) Examples of some of the artwork the members of BCCL created and sold at their yearly Bazaar.
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