A Visit To The Happiness Centre

On 8th July 2008,48 members of the English Language Society with our teacher advisor, Mrs. Ivy visited the Happiness Centre For The Mentally Disabled Children in Klebang. As soon as we arrived, we were given a short briefing by Mr. Roy the founder of the centre. He was very thankful for the 16 packets of diapers which we donated. For your information, the ELS members have been collecting old newspapers from the classes since April. The money to buy the diapers came from the sale of the newspapers.

What we learnt from our visit?

There are 32 children at the centre. The oldest is a 33 year old boy and the youngest is a 5 year old boy. Only 4 of them are able to walk while the rests are bed- ridden. 9 children are regarded critical cases. They cannot walk and are 100% dependent on people to feed and bath them. Most of these children have multiple disabilities meaning that they have more than one disability ranging from blindness, deaf, dumb, epilepsy, down syndrome, mentally retarded and cerebral palsy. There are 6 parents who visit their children once a month while the rests of the parents only come once a year during festive celebration such as Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, Deepavali and Christmas.

We now, would like to share with you some of the reasons why these children are mentally disabled.

According to Mr. Roy,
Firstly, young unmarried girls, when they discovered they were pregnant, they tried to abort the foetus by taking all kinds of drugs and traditional herbs and in so doing has caused birth deformities.
Secondly, young mothers who in their quest to be slim and attractive tried all kinds of so called miracle products which unintentionally affected the foetus.
Thirdly, during child birth complication occured.

What we did there?

We played, talked and even sang with the children. Even though they are disabled children, they love visitors so much and were happy to take photographs with us.

Our feelings when we left.

We realized how lucky and thankful we are to be able to see, speak, hear, walk and run. In addition, community awareness is still lacking. Lastly, there is so much more we can do towards community service.