Equip deafblind children with skills for life!

“My biggest dream is to see my child become independent and able to take care of himself”. With these hopeful words, Chee’s father registered his son in the DBMH program in St. Nicholas’ Home.

If you think the name sounds familiar, you would not be wrong.

Back in 2014 little Chee already appeared on our Global Giving Page. Now he returns as a 14 year old teenager with his spirit undiminished.

Due to his premature birth, Chee, the eldest of twin brother, was diagnosed with Retina Pigmentosa leading to total blindness and a learning deficiency. Apart from that he was also diagnosed with hyperactivity (ADHD).

Arriving at St. Nicholas Home in 2009 Chee was only able to understand and follow simple instructions in mandarin or malay. Chee had difficulties with gross and fine motor skills, making it tough for him to climb staircase, identify objects, walking from the classroom to dormitory. With speech impediments, even calling out the names of his friends during group activities is a challenge for him. He required full assistance for daily living skills such as  feeding, drinking and dressing himself.

Now approximately 8 years later Chee has made tremendous improvements. He has developed a keen sense for orientation inside the home and can walk freely from one place to the other. His fine motor skills have also improved significantly through threading exercises. But most importantly Chee has become completely independent when it comes to self-management tasks such as eating, dressing and drinking. In retrospective, we can note that Chee learned a lot through our DBMH program.

On the other hand, his presence has enriched  all of us the teachers and the students alike. As a volunteer from Germany staying for 11 months at St. Nicholas’ Home, I personally appreciate Chee’s presence in particular.

His curiosity about the small things in life and his enthusiasm are so wonderful to behold. Especially in a time when most people are chasing after materialistic enjoyment, Chee’s joy about simple things such as the feel of water, the sound of music or just playing with rubber balls, has been a motivation and encouragement for all of us.

“Shared happiness is doubled happiness” this also goes for Chee, just by watching him laughing, brings happiness to everyone around him.

He is a hero and role model for all of us.

“Being disabled should not mean being disqualified from having access to every aspect of life.”

Seeing the 14 year old Daniel dancing and smiling to our classic folk song, “Chan Mali Chan” this quote was the one most fitting to his person.

Daniel who is born with retinopathy of prematurity, learning difficulties and total blindness joined St. Nicholas’ Home’ Deaf Blind Multi Handicapped Programme in 2003 and since then we have witnessed his slow but steady growth and improvements. Our DBMH programme teachers are so proud of Daniel when they recount his progress over the years he is with us. Among the activities he is good at is typing the alphabets in Braille independently, spelling simple names and words. He is also able to identify his own birthday. The most important thing is that he is verbally expressive when he needs to go to the toilet. As Daniel is blessed with better hearings compared to some of his classmate, he could understand instructions and responds when he is called. He is also given the responsibilities to switch off the classroom’s lights and fans whenever they go for outdoor activities and he upholds his responsibilities well!

Step by step, we can see that Daniel is becoming more independent and creative, a child full of vitality and with so much hope for the future.

We would like to thank you who are reading this for your love and continuous support for children such as Daniel. Because of you, we are able to make their world better with each passing day. Please continue to support the work we do for these children by making donations. Stay tuned for our next update! Thank you!

P.S: Don’t forget to show us some love and like us on our Facebook page at St. Nicholas' Home, Penang!