A look inside the Cerebral Palsy Children’s Association of Penang
CNNGo September 13, 2010 — Psychedelic colors are projected onto the walls around the room. Giant tubes like lava lamps glow in one corner while directly opposite, a ball pond shimmers as rays of light emerge from below.
My mind is captivated, but rather than being for my benefit, the snoezelen room is designed to stimulate the senses of people with disabilities, something the folks at the Cerebral Palsy (Spastic) Children’s Association of Penang (SCAP) are experts in.
I’d been in George Town, capital of Malaysia’s Penang state, for a few days, taking in the sites and sounds of the culturally charged George Town Festival, when I received an invite to visit SCAP.
Long history of helping
The organization was founded in 1962 to provide therapy and education to Malaysians with cerebral palsy, a motor condition that impedes bodily movement, most commonly manifesting itself as spastic cerebral palsy.
The center supports 146 people with cerebral palsy, most of them children, as well as older students who help the younger ones or work on vocational projects.
Parents in Malaysia sometimes struggle to take care of children with cerebral palsy, so with this in mind, SCAP reaches out to the most remote areas of Penang, says Saw Hock Eng, immediate past president of SCAP and my guide at the center.
“We know exactly what the children need and how to treat them. It’s not simple teaching. You have to have a system, to know how to teach the children precisely,” he says.
Touring the grounds
After a quick burst of color at the snoezelen room, we walk around SCAP, popping into the various rooms to see the activities students are engaged in.
In one room, students with movement disorders use computers with various kinds of specialized keyboards, buttons and other gadgets. There are a few types of cerebral palsy, none of which has a cure, but various forms of therapy can help a person function more effectively.
At another part of the center we visit a small workshop where people are making bookmarks or else separating items for recycling for a Malaysian waste-management company.
Everyone greets me with a smile or a handshake, and one of the students, a young chap named Adrian Choo, who has Down syndrome, tells me about his love of Michael Jackson’s dancing and how he likes to perform whenever an opportunity arises.
Meanwhile, at a small swimming pool, students experience movement in water, and from the looks on their faces they thoroughly enjoy it.
In their words
After my walk around, I sit down with a few of the older students, some of whom speak English, and we have a chat about the center and life in general.
The students occasionally struggle to get their words out, but they have lots to tell me. Yin Tsang, 34, tells me what a blessing the computer room is.
“We can do a lot here. We can write, we can touch, we can communicate with each other. We cannot write with a pen, but with a computer at least we can communicate, and with the Internet, we can communicate with the world,” she says.
After my visit I come across a poem by an unknown author called “I Am the Disabled Child,” which begins:
“I am the child who cannot talk. You often pity me. I see it in your eyes. You wonder how much I am aware of. I see that as well. I am aware of much. Whether you are happy or sad or fearful, patient or impatient, full of love and desire, or if you are just doing your duty by me.”
SCAP leaves me with a great deal to ponder. But more than anything, it gives me an unforgettable insight into something I ashamedly knew very little about.
SCAP offers these services for free and is heavily reliant on donations. Visitors are welcome to call in on the center and see for themselves the life-changing work that goes on there. Call + 604 657 0160, email info@spasticpenang.org.my or visit www.spasticpenang.org.my.