HELLO SIR! at the Enabling Village

In the recent March school holidays, I was invited by Ms Lee Seow Ser, a children’s author to her HELLO SIR! event which was held at the Enabling Village. Ms Lee has written a number of bilingual children’s books under the “I am Unique” series which features children with special needs. She is also the project lead of To S.I.R (Socially Inclusive Reads) with Love, an initiative that aims to educate children on kindness, inclusion and empathy through reading and other related activities like storytelling.  

In line with the latest title in her series, “My Name is Ling. I am Blind”, the HELLO SIR! event had many braille-related activities in its programme.  

For example, the participants had an activity where they decoded messages in braille on bookmarks. They were divided into smaller groups for the activity, with one braille ambassador per group who assisted in verifying if the children got the messages correct.  

Before the activity started, Ms Lee introduced the braille system to the young audience. To demonstrate how braille works, she got six volunteers to come in front and she arranged them like a braille cell. It is a system where the dots are arranged in two columns with three rows. By combining the different dots, different symbols can be formed. She would call for instance Dot 1 for A and the child assigned to that dot would jump.  

The participants were then invited to the table to see how the Perkins Brailler worked. I met a young Cub Scout, a sweet little girl, who started chatting with me, not once but a few more times after that. Later at the end of the session, she even mentioned she liked communicating with me because it was like being transported to another world. How adorable.  

Her other Cub Scout friends were shy to talk to me so she was asking questions on their behalf. These included the usual questions children would ask like my favourite colour, hobbies, and so on. She also let me feel all the badges sewn on her uniform for the different skills and achievements she has obtained.   

Initially when Ms Lee invited me to her event, I did not know how I could help, or what I could do there. She described it as a casual gathering of our friends, and later enlisted my help to distribute snacks and participate in the storytelling segment. I also assisted at the registration table and handed out shortbread cookies and cakes together with my notetaker whom I engaged, to the participants who signed up. There was even another table where a friend was using the Perkins Brailler to type out children’s names or short messages on cards when requested. 

During the storytelling segment, as I read the book My Name is Ling. I am Blind to the audience, I became worried that they would find my segment boring because it was less interactive than the other activities. To complement this however, when the reading ended, Ms Lee got the audience to close their eyes as she played audio clips related to some parts of the story, such as playground sounds and sounds of people crying. She then got them to guess what they heard.  

This was followed by a segment on sign language. The children were taught basic sign language like alphabets and simple words. They also learnt how to spell their names in sign language. My Name is Ling. I am Blind. was then read again, this time using sign language, and the participants were asked to identify words they had learnt before.  

To close off the event, there were music performances by three blind performers – a lady who sang, a guitarist and an Erhu player. A friend remarked that the lady had a beautiful voice. As time passes, I cannot remember how most of the people that I know sound like, let alone those whom I have met after losing my hearing.  

A Deaf artist then conducted an art jamming session where the children learnt to draw beetles. 

Overall, it was a meaningful way to engage the young and teach them about braille and sign language. I do hope there could be more such events for participants to learn more about the different types of disabilities in a fun and engaging way.