Honestly, I did not expect much from the DiD tour just that I thought we will be dining in the dark or just walking around in the dark. I seen DiD featured on some tour television show. So I was prepared to walk around in the dark. I just thought that DiD was just going to be walking in the dark in rooms.
When I got into the room, it was so dark that I could not see anything and I felt handicapped as my main organ for sight has been lost. Also, fear and frustration started to kick in as I no longer could see and I was very frustrated as everything has turned black now and the fear of being lost in the dark started affecting my mind. This experience truly impacted me and let me put myself in the shoes on the blind.
In the DiD tour, I traveled to many places and one of which is the boat tour at Singapore River where I sat on the “River Taxi”. This was the first time I sat on the “River Taxi” and everything was dark and I could only feel the boat moving and water splashing and hear the sound of the water and the boat engine. It was really boring as I could not see anything as the tour guide explains the various trademarks during the boat trip like “We are going under a bridge” but I can’t see any. Finally I realized that a trip for the people who can see may be very interesting but for those who can’t see is really boring. So this taught me to take note if the beneficiaries I am helping happen to be unable to see. This will prevent any miscommunications or misunderstandings when I work with them.
Throughout the trip, the blind guide, William was the one who is guiding us around. There was a role reversal as the sighted could not see and the blind guide was the only one who could “see” in the darkness and navigate us around. William also taught us the proper way how to guide a blind person which is to hold him/her by his/her arm. This tip is very important as this will prevent any misunderstanding of molest and the blind would know that someone is trying to help him/her.
DiD Singapore is a very good model for BZSE and PCS students to learn from as it is a good platform for the students to actually experienced how a SE works and what it stands for and DiD Singapore is actually in Ngee Ann Polytechnic which allows the students to travel easily to DiD Singapore to learn. Also, I think that DiD Singapore is very new but I believe it can work towards the image of the “ideal” social enterprise in Singapore. Since Ngee Ann Polytechnic is the first polytechnic to have a Business and Social Enterprise course thus, with DiD set as the benchmark, students in BZSE and PCS can learn from it.
I believe that BZSE students can contribute better marketing ideas to market DiD Singapore so that more visitors would visit DiD Singapore and experience the tour and learn what a social enterprise is all about. BZSE students could perhaps invite more of their friends to attend and educate them about DiD, its mission, its operations and its business model.
That’s all from me.
Written by
Glenn Michael Danker
BZSE Year 2
