Pre-Flag Day reflections

By Mark Heng

Year 1, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and University Scholars Programme


A USP student seeking donations during Flag Day


Mark Heng (far left) and Sharan Minhas with a resident of Bishan Home for the Intellectually Disabled

As a precursor to the NUS Students' Union Rag and Flag Day events, the University Scholars Club (USC) integrated a Pre-Flag programme into its Freshmen Orientation Programme, O-Week, which saw some 160 University Scholars Programme (USP) freshmen and seniors visit the following beneficiaries: Bishan Home for the Intellectually Disabled, Filos Community Services, Teen Challenge, Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped, and the Metta Day Rehabilitation Centre for the Elderly. For many of the students, the experience was meaningful, gratifying, and even humbling. Mark Heng, one of the USP freshmen who took part in O-Week and the Pre-Flag programme, reflects on what the experience meant to him on a personal level …

On the last day of O-Week on 26 July, we took home something perhaps more meaningful than friendships and the sense of nostalgia, something that tugged at our heartstrings and touched a chord within us.

At the outset of the Pre-Flag event, Christopher Chok, the Flag Director, shared the aim of the event to give us a better understanding of the beneficiaries by bringing us in direct contact with them.

My orientation group visited Bishan Home for the Intellectually Disabled. This residential home strives to enhance the quality of life of its residents with intellectual disabilities by providing them with a safe, communal-living environment. Beyond ensuring that the residents receive daily necessities, Bishan Home also offers a range of programmes and activities, such as therapy, training and development, social work and community outreach, for residents of different levels of ability, with different needs and capabilities.

After being introduced to the Home, we assisted with the morning classes, which included some simple psychomotor activities such as building blocks and colouring. The residents from the low-functioning group were initially uninterested in our efforts to befriend them, but they slowly opened up to us as we spent more time with them. The patience needed in order to communicate effectively with the residents was humbling, and drew a stark contrast to the fast-paced relational mode of most Singaporeans.

With the high-functioning group, it was easier to communicate as most of the residents were rather responsive and sociable. The residents in this group were engaged in brain games and puzzles meant to train their cognitive abilities. Their awareness of what was going on around them and ability to reciprocate were apparent when we had to take our leave and bid them farewell. The deep emotions that the residents expressed at our departure was at once surprising and moving.

Personally, Pre-Flag was an eye-opener – it was a new experience for most of us to work with intellectually disabled adults. I believe that although our time at Bishan Home was short, we were nevertheless deeply impacted by the experience, which reminded us not take our lives for granted, and to seek to help and serve those who are less fortunate than us in our community.

30 September 2011