Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder

On 19th April 2008, a few of us Mensans joined another small group from YMCA as volunteers to accompany ten beneficiaries from the Association of People with Special Needs (APSN) to the Community Games Day held at Anglo-Chinese Junior College. I will not bore you with the details as to how we reached there, how we took a bus to the carnival and back, stayed for about one and half hours etc. etc.

What I am going to write is about the people I met and my personal experience. First of all, what amazed me about the volunteer group was the age range. Valarie, who is still waiting for admission to a university, has been with YMCA for about 2 years. Then we had our own university goers - Andrew, Gabriel, Justin and James. We also had Josef, Engineering Management tutor at NUS, Dr. Ohl, a Physics professor at NTU and his partner, Siew Wan who just earned her PhD.

Our beneficiaries have an IQ range of 50-70, below average but enough to allow them to be specially educated, trained to be independent and in the successful cases, be gainfully employed. All of them were highly conversant. They all had a little childishness around them. Most of them travelled from their homes to the school alone.

The lady I was escorting is Jacqueline. She was always smiling and thoroughly enjoyed the dance group that was teaching a few steps at the carnival. She would also constantly tell me about her "Holy Spirit Church brothers and sisters" with whom she seemed to be very comfortable with.

Another beneficiary with Dr. Ohl was thrilled while playing the Praxis financial literacy board game and was so enthusiastic and competitive that their table attracted the largest crowd for quite some time. Our other lovely beneficiaries, just like us, enjoyed the most when they were having their free ice creams.

Another person whom I spoke to for quite some time was Haiti, a teacher to these special individuals, a mother of a two-and-a-half year old girl, and who is totally dedicated to the cause of the People with Need for Special Education. She said although the wages were not that attractive, it seemed like "it is her calling".

This is about the gist of the people we met. However, that is what questions me. I could summarise the gist of people within this small space. Is this supposed to be the way? Is it possible for more and more people to go out and spend a mere few hours in a month with someone who will probably not remember even their name a few hours later? I think yes, and with the hope that Andrew keeps on to this, we will soon have a larger turnout of volunteers from our end.

Playing my part, I will summarise against the prevalent notion that one will feel sad when they attend such events. It was never sad. It was a matter of joy to see that there are people out there who ‘actively’ care about the ones who have not been well endowed to care about themselves. It was a matter of faith to see that somehow they were able to be a part of the society and not shunned away. It was a matter of happiness to see that they were all smiling and laughing and giggling away, alien to materialistic issues and ambitions. They are being taken care of and are happy. So the next time you get a chance to volunteer for such an event, please do so against all inhibitions as I am sure some of the joy from them will spill over to you, eradicating all your worries for a few hours.

By Subhajit Mandal

subhajit.iitkgp@mensa.org.sg

(This article was extracted from Menews, Mensa Singapore's monthly newsletter.)