1. Before the tour, we actually had a talk on DID by Mrs Choo. She told us about the overall tour on how it is going to be like and some of the ‘attractions’ that we can experience throughout the entire tour. It did make me wonder how we would actually feel walking in a room with complete darkness. This has made me even more excited to go for the tour the next day. Though I am scared of darkness, the way Mrs Choo has described the tour to us has indeed triggered the excitement in us to visiting DID. I believe that the tour will be very fun and inspiring for all of us.

During the tour, I remember feeling very insecure and worried. The entire place was in COMPLETE DARKNESS. Even if you were to put your hands in front of yourself, you will realize that you could not even see anything at all. The funniest thing was that I started crying after stepping in. I will try to grab Mabel’s and Singyee’s hands and everything that allows me to feel secure. Thus, communication is vital for us to know our ways. I am very glad to have Jason as our blind guide. He was really very friendly and nice. He allows us to feel comfortable with the place and even without our eyes, we could feel the place with our heart and also allowing ourselves to imagine how the place is like. Throughout the entire trip, Jason explained the place to us and this let us to feel calmer and slowly enjoying the tour. We have learnt so many things from this tour itself and especially from Jason. We sat down at the café in DID and he told us about his personal story. Jason is now 30 years old and he only lost his sight three years ago. Instead of feeling despair and becoming dependent on others, he chose to stand up on his feet and get on with life. He came to know about this job and agreed to be one of the blind guides in DID. I really admire him a lot. He made me realized that even though there can be many ups and downs in our lives, the most important thing is to be able to let things go and appreciate life in another way. So why should other people discriminate them? If we think it again, the visually handicapped are actually those that show us hope in our lives. I remember we had a post reflection talk with one of the interns in DID, Feng Kai. He mentioned something which I totally agreed with him. In the sighted world, we are the kings and the queens and we tend to forget about those that are less fortunate than us. However, during the tour when everything is in darkness, who are the kings and queens then? I believe that everyone ought to know that all humans are equal and that everyone should be given the equal chances in life. Many times, we tend to take things for granted but after this trip, I have learnt to be more positive in life and to appreciate my sight better.

I feel that it is great setting up DID as a social enterprise. Firstly, there can be more jobs opening up for the visually handicapped and creating awareness of the marginalized people in our community. When more people come to know about DID and after the experience, I am sure they will be able to appreciate things better and to be able to empathize with the blinds. Through this, I hope that discrimination on the visually handicapped can be reduced and more job opportunities can be opened up for them. It is a great idea to have this as a tour and implementing charges for the tickets. DID can thus be able to sustain itself as a social enterprise and also as an educational institute. DID definitely serves as a learning platform for PCS and BZSE students. I really look up to this social enterprise and it does help us to understand that we too can play our parts in helping the marginalized sector in the society.

BZSE students can help them to do marketing! We can share our experiences with our friends, family, relatives and etc and invite them to come down for a tour. If not, we can also find working opportunities with DID.

Chow Wei Ling, T02