COMMUNITY ORIENTATION PROGRAMME

Last week, 30 January 2013-1 February 2013, the OT’s, Speechies and audio’s had a community orientation programme. None of us really knew what to expect, we all thought it was just the normal day to day lectures. However, they turned out to be SO much more than that. This 3 day programme was not only introducing us to our community block, but it changed our perspectives on the world in general. And I believe we learnt all these things just to open our eyes to what is going on this world. Take the focus off our tiny little lives and shift our perspectives to something so much bigger than ourselves. I think that this perspective shift allowed us to open our eyes, minds and hearts to the communities that we were going to be reaching and hopefully, impacting. There were so many aspects of this orientation that I really enjoyed. I will speak of 2 that really touched my heart. 1. Daniel and his mom. Daniel is a severe athetoid CP 29 year old man living in the community. He had great difficulty with communication and it took a lot of concentration to hear what he had to say. But as he carried on talking, the more mesmerised you became and the more your heart started swelling with awe for this man. This man was born this way, he has absolutely no control over his muscles so he presents as displaying heavily jerky movements. He is wheelchair bound, and as I said, he has great difficulty speaking. YET he has the most incredible mind! I am ashamed to say it, as I think anyone would be as my first thought when seeing Daniel, was that because he shows signs of severe disability, that he must be intellectually challenged. It’s scary to think how many people would have this reaction, even OT students. It was an eye opener to say the least and a lesson hard learned that you cannot judge a patient before you actually get to know them, and not only patients but people in general. He has a PERFECT mind. He said something so very true... “Let’s be honest here. People don’t judge someone on the way they think, they judge them on the way they look.” And through really poor decisions made for Daniel during his schooling career, he was greatly disadvantaged. Daniel made a very scary but such a true comment for all health professionals, that the decisions we make can make or break a life. Had teachers at his school taken the time to evaluate Daniel’s situation, he may have got the adequate education that he was very capable of doing. We are all so quick to focus on DISABILITY, when in fact; we should be focussing on ABILITY. Daniel’s humour, personality and his story in general just brought tears to so many during the orientation programme. Prof Joubert has been speaking of Daniel since we started in 4th year, and we finally got to meet him, and I think we met him at the perfect time in our OT student careers because it inspired us just that little bit more to make a difference this year and in the future and also to motivate us for our community module. 2. Helga’s lecture on the world. This was an INCREDIBLE lecture. It felt like we were at one of those world seminars where presidents and important people of the world would attend. I have never been one to be interested in world statistics and money etc but after this lecture I have been on the worldmeters site often just to see what’s going on in the world. It is incredible how ridiculously sheltered we are as a youth. We do not hear of the statistics and this lecture made me appreciate life so much more when I was faced with the reality that we are so small compared to this world. There is SO much going on that we can’t even comprehend. It just opens your eyes and once again, changes your perspective of your place in the world. And even though we may seem insignificant when we see those numbers climbing on the worldmeters site, it does not make me feel insignificant. It makes me feel that if we can do just a tiny part of making this world a better place, then that’s great. I would like to be part of those people that strive to make a small difference in the life of others, that we are not insignificant. After this lecture, I could not stop talking about it and how I wish that some of my friends could hear what Helga had to say. T made me very appreciative and grateful for the career choice that I made, because not everyone has the chance to take a really good look at their lives and want to make a change. It was an awe inspiring lecture. Our orientation exceeded all expectations, it was thought out so well and the time we had was utilised to its utmost benefit for all of us. We have never been fully orientated to a block before and I think a recommendation would be that all blocks do something like this to get us excited and give us an idea of what we are in for. It was also a great learning experience working with other disciplines namely speech and audio’s. I think that our community block is going t be very interesting and dynamic for our learning especially as part of learning to work with a multi disciplinary team. I always thought that my heart was in community, and after this orientation I KNOW that my heart is in community, and I’m almost sure that after my community block this year; my heart will be set on it.