AWWA

I spent last Friday at AWWA in Hougang with iBig. They planned some music session thing with the special ed (mildly autistic) kids there, which turned out pretty awesome. It was my first time ever interacting with autistic kids, so I really didn't know what to expect -- they were alot more extroverted and friendly than I had imagined. Somehow, I had the impression that they'd be really quiet and antisocial. I have this mental image of an autistic kid, sitting in a corner, creating genius-level works of art, and he'ss oblivious to everything around him, sort of living in his own world. But they were all very warm and welcoming, more than us visitors anyway. When I say warm, I mean warm. Like there were kids who literally ran up to us saying hello, introducing themselves, asking us for our names. There was this particular kid who ran up to Xyvill (17 yr old guy from myanmar, he named himself that) and asked to "bao bao". So Xyvill just picked him up, carried him and rocked the kid around. All this happens like, in the first minute that we step into the acitivity room -- even before we got a chance to talk to the lady in charge of the kids.









Really gotta give credit to the social workers at the centre. After about 2 hours of playtime with the kids, we were completely out of it. We have 2 more sessions with the kids...looking forward to our next! I left the place feeling all "i've made a positive difference on earth", which is a really nice feeling to have.