Friday, November 6, 2009 . JuoWi's DiD Reflection.
10:53 AM

Upon hearing that I will be going on a Dialogue in the Dark (DiD) tour, i felt excited yet skeptical. I'm going to attempt to live the life of a blind person! At that point of time, I did not have much feelings for the blind as I was not exposed to them much. Thus I see this DiD tour as a chance to widen my scope and expose myself to the lives of our blind counterparts.

After going through the tour, my whole perspective of the blind changed. I used to just think of them as disadvantaged, needing our sympathy and help to go through their lives. They may be healthy or smart or even talented in one way or another but they are still blind. Physically impaired. But the tour really opened my eyes to something new. In the dark, these blind people are the Lords. They know their way around and I even had to depend alot on my guide. Amongst all the chaos, fear and nervousness, the guide's calm and soothing voice led us through the tour safely. It seems as if now I am the disadvantaged one, needing to depend heavily on others to live my life. I finally understood how they felt all these while, living a life withour sight. However, I feel that their lives and our lives are very similar. They have to wake up in the morning, take the public transport, go to the market, go to work, eat, drink, interact with people, sleep at night. Basically it is just all that we normally do just without the aid of our eyes. Their other senses are heightened to be advantageous over ours. Thus we have nothing much to be proud of just because we can see. The next time I come into contact with a blind person, I will not look at him/her with sympathy in my eyes but with respect and treat him just as a normal person like how he/she deserves.

I feel that DiD is a very appropriate Social Enterprise (SE) to start in Singapore as there is nothing much here that really brings out the exposure towards blind people. There is no other organization in Singapore that makes the blind to become the advantageous ones while us being the disadvantaged. As a Business & Social Enterprise (BZSE) student, I feel that i have much to learn from DiD. DiD is truly a one of a kind empowerment towards disadvantaged people. It is a real creative and effective way to bring out the existance and most importantly the importance of the blind.

Being a BZSE student, I can contribute to DiD in a few ways. I can help spread by word of mouth to my friends and family about this SE. Through me, publicity will be made. I can also bring them down to try out the tour so that they can experience what I have experienced. I can also work at DiD as a volunteer or intern during my internship semester. I can learn how to mend DiD in the best way possible and help it to grow. I can also entertain the blind guides during their free time in school. Through that I might also learn more about the blind, making it a two-way connection with them.


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