20S15

For the Service Learning day project this year, our class took up “Advocacy for a cause”. We were tasked to organise an online campaign to raise awareness on the different types of children with special needs. This encompasses disorders such as Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, Down syndrome and physical disabilities. For 10 days, our class ensured that there were 2 days touching on each special needs category, along with interesting activities.

We needed to create content that is informative and insightful, this included information about the disabilities, and the call for action. This is to encourage users to play a part to better and progressively include those with special needs into our society and stop the stigma surrounding people with special needs.

Thus, we had three general roles to fill: research, creation and execution. Firstly, the research team searched up on the relevant details needed to create content. For instance, searching up about myths and facts of Down’s Syndrome, and gathering facts on children with physical disabilities, autism, ADHD, dyslexia. Thereafter, the creation of materials team would then refer to the resources gathered by the research team to come up with templates of posts to be posted, as well as different activities to engage the public in our project for them to have a greater understanding of children with different types of special needs. Lastly, the execution team would come up with interesting and enriching captions, posting on different types of special needs each day.

The campaign was hosted through an Instagram page we started for the class (@sajc_fortheunique). Every day, there were posts dedicated to raising awareness about each individual disorder, and provided readers with a glimpse of what children who have these conditions experience, and how they may differ from neuro-typical children. The posts were interesting and varied from BINGO sheets to polls, or even quizzes. The class worked together by taking up their role and putting the whole project together.

Instagram: @sajc_fortheunique

I was part of the Creations Team and was in charge of creating posts and stories relating to Down Syndrome awareness. While preparing the stories, I also learnt from the project. After reading the assumptions, I had also gained new knowledge about those with Down Syndrome and those with special needs in general. I remember there have been statistics in Singapore stating that a large percentage of parents would not want their child to be seated with someone with special needs. However, through this project, I got even strongly reminded that it should not matter because everyone is all the same and how everyone should be treated the same and with respect despite our differences. This allowed for self-reflection: to be more patient and gracious to those with special needs in the future, and how I can play a part to help them integrate into our society better. I believe that the butterfly effect is possible and everyone can eventually stop the stigma surrounding those with special needs.

I was a part of the execution team. We were given the role of setting up an Instagram page and posting the posts prepared for the various days. This included coming up with captions for each post. This role has definitely taught me more about how to be sensitive to others around us as we had to ensure our captions and posts did not offend anybody. We had to put ourselves in the shoes of others and execute the project with compassion and understanding.

I was a part of the research team in this project. I was in charge of researching the myths and facts of the Down’s Syndrome, and gathering it in our shared Google document. Furthermore, I researched on the different types of physical disabilities, and also contributed some ideas on activities to do to raise awareness in this aspect. I have learnt the importance of participation in this project. As it was quite a big project with a lot to be done, it was important that everyone in the class participates and contribute in some way, so that the leaders would not be too overwhelmed with planning for this project.

I contributed by searching for information online and organising it in our team’s document alongside the research team and gave relevant suggestions on activities when necessary. I learnt that coordination is important even when split into different teams because we had to convey the necessary information to the creation team so that they would not provide the wrong information to the public.

I was part of the research team where we gathered and consolidated information, misconceptions,daily problems and common stereotypes of the physical disabilities and special needs accordingly, to provide the best background knowledge and context for the creation team to innovate on the type of content to deliver on our social media platform. I also joined the creation team in designing the logo to best represent and encapsulate as the icon of our social media account which is used as the identifying profile in our instagram account. Individually, I took initiative to promote this cause to others. Through this project, I am able to better understand the different misconceptions and insensitivities towards these disabilities, especially their daily mundane problems that they have to go through. I also learnt to recognise the types of encouragement and forms of help that they need, which has pushed me to be better at understanding things from another’s perspective and providing the help that they need sensitively and accordingly.

I think through this project and being able to find out so much more about Children with special needs, i really learnt to humble myself and realise that there are always more than it meets the eye for people with special needs. I have found in myself a newfound and deeper respect for the children who generally are able to face life with positivity and that inspired me to take on that challenge of looking at things more positively as well. This definitely better equipped myself who have extended relatives and friends with similar needs such as Physical disabilities and Autism to be more aware of what they may require in the future and aid in whatever i can with the newfound knowledge i gained through this project.