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Empowering children with learning disabilities

Posted on 06 February 2014

KUCHING: Helping children with learning disabilities such as dyslexia
to acquire reading and spelling skills will not only open doors for
them to engage with the community but also participate fully in it.

Dyslexia
Association of Sarawak (DAS) vice-president Richard Sia said this when
speaking during the certificate presentation ceremony for participants
of the Empower Programme organised by the US Department of State, which
was held at the Sarawak State Library yesterday.

“With the ability
to read and acquire information from resources out there, we hope that
these children will gain access and be included in mainstream schools
and communities, thus providing them with accessibility and
inclusiveness through empowering them in reading.

“With this new
knowledge and techniques, we hope to create and improve the support for
dyslexic children and adults, and for the children with other learning
disabilities to acquire learning skills in reading, spelling and
learning English.”

Last month, DAS and SK Laksamana Kuching in
collaboration with state Education Department and Yayasan Sarawak
conducted a reading camp for Primary 3 students, where children were
immersed in English teaching and language.

The camp was a pilot
project to empower children with learning disabilities through an
intensive reading programme over a seven-day period at Yayasan Sarawak
in Kuching.

“All our children have shown a significant improvement
in their pre-camp and post camp assessments for the English language,”
shared Sia, adding that the children’s progress would continue to be
monitored over the next six months.

He thanked guest-of-honour US
Ambassador to Malaysia Joseph Y. Yun, the US Embassy in KL and all those
responsible for funding and providing the association with valuable
information and expertise to further improve its learning and assessment
programmes.

During his speech, Yun praised the state library for
its beauty and expressed the US Embassy’s willingness to continue to
work together with the library to help it expand as well as provide
other means of support such as exchanges and lectures.

Yun, who is
Korean-American, noted the similarities between Malaysia and the USA in
that both were multicultural nations with people from diverse
backgrounds, religious beliefs and ethnicity all living together.

“To
me, having this mix is very, very important and I do believe, such a
mix is a very important ingredient in how a nation succeeds. Again, this
is very much full of hope as I come and see what you have done in
Sarawak,” he said.

During his speech, His Excellency said the
Embassy was very happy to have played a small part in enabling the
Empower Programme as well as the camp to take flight.

“We’re here
to recognise what we one can do with a serious disability like dyslexia.
Dyslexia is something that is not readily visible, not like many
disabilities. When we recognise that, and when we have exchanges,
mentors, tutors, who can really make sure that people with dyslexia can
live full lives – more than that, lives with learning, I think that
makes an enormous contribution. I am very happy to honour the Dyslexia
association, what Richard Sia and his group have done. We are very happy
to be a very small part of how we can highlight and assist in this
effort.”

Yun later presented certificates to DAS treasurer and
head of human resources Wallace Lee and SK Laksamana, Kuching special
education teacher (dyslexia) Alban Lisen who took part in one of the US
Department of State’s Empower programmes.

Earlier, the ambassador
and his wife, Dr Melanie Billings were welcomed to the library by
chairman of the board of directors of Pustaka Negeri Sarawak Tan Sri
Hamid Bugo before they were taken on a short of the library and briefed
by its acting chief executive officer Arpah Adenan on its functions and
facilities, including of the Lincoln Corner.

According to an event
information handout, the Empower Programme is a new series of two-way
exchanges aimed at bolstering international disability rights by
providing opportunities to disability advocates for professional
development, internships, training, networking, and collaboration with
their US peers.

The programme is run by the Professional Exchanges
Division of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in
partnership with Mobility International USA (Miusa). The exchanges
coincide with efforts to promote and ratify the Convention on the Rights
of Persons with Disabilities by the administration.

Last year,
the Dyslexia Association of Sarawak (DAS) and SK Laksamana, Kuching and
the University of Michigan Centre for the Development of Language and
Literacy (UMCDLL) were selected to participate in the programme.

In
August last year, Dr Carol Persad from UMCDLL spent about a week in
Kuching to conduct a series of workshops on teaching methodology for
dyslexia and other learning disabilities for over 80 teachers, NGOs, and
Kuching State Education officers who work with children with
disabilities.

During the following Oct 13 until Nov 2, Lee and
Alban were hosted by Miusa and the University of Michigan to collaborate
and develop a project on the Miusa reading camp to promote the rights
and inclusion of people with disabilities.

The partnership received a USD7,000 grant to implement the Miusa Reading Camp project.