Equip deafblind children with skills for life!

Below, you can see 17 year old Jamie (nickname) from Alor Setar. He is part of a family with two caring parents, one brother, and one sister.  Unfortunately, his mother got infected by the Rubella Virus during her pregnancy, leading to Jamie being born with Rubella Syndrome.  Especially during this period, Rubella can cause consequences like deafness, blindness, brains disorders, and further disabilities. Jamie was born deaf and by the age of seven completely lost his sight. 

When Jamie joined the St. Nicholas Home at the age of eleven, he was still very dependent on other people. Regarding eating, clothing himself, and cleaning himself, he still very much needed the help of his family members and the teachers.  Now, after six years, his skills have improved drastically. Jamie is no longer in need of assistance concerning these living skills and, furthermore, does not even need directions to start completing these tasks by himself.  In addition to that, in familiar surroundings, teachers are able to let him walk by himself, as he is absolutely able to safely find places like the bathroom, the classroom, and the dining-hall independently. 

However, his living skills are yet to be improved. First thing every morning, he is being taken out to the yard to learn how to walk consciously with a white cane.  Additionally, his concentration skills are being promoted by tasks which he has to handle very carefully, like folding cloths in laundry and moving small objects from one container to another.
We hope to be able to improve Jamie’s social skills as well. He is aware of there being other children with him in the classroom, but he chooses at times to stay by himself.

We teachers are sometimes still struggling with communicating fully with him.  We are able to tell him to prepare himself once it is lunch time or to go to the bathroom, but as he is ready to do any task we give him, it is hard to find out which he prefers.  In addition to that, as Jamie is relying on tactile sense, it is one of our only ways to communicate with him, which makes it at times hard when we want to introduce a completely new task. 

Nonetheless, Jamie has shown a lot of improvement since coming to St. Nicholas Home six years ago. Even though he has this difficult start in life, he is still a happy child and the teachers can often observe him laughing, lost in his thoughts.  We plan to improve his situation further, supported by his parents, and start our last year with him with the wish of making him as independent as we and he can manage.