SMK HOSBA

THE BARRIERS SOCIETY HAS CREATED BETWEEN

US AND THE DISABLED COMMUNITY

-Nur Irdina Safiyya bt Roslan-

Theres a barrier between us,

Like a wall,
Being built to keep me away,
I feel so troubled,
Like an ocean on a stormy day,
You’ve been hurt before,
I can see it in your eyes,
But,
Let your walls fall apart,
I’m here for you,
I can fix all the stiches on your broken heart.

Assalamualaikum and a very good morning.I bid to charming mr/mrs

speaker,accurate time keeper,line of the honourable judges,teachers
and my fellow friends.Today I’ll be speaking about the barriers society
has created between us and the disabled community.

Picture this, you are in the ETS,you are scrolling through your
phone and then you notice of this lady,walking in the cabin saying Hello?
Hello? Hello? To everybody ,but there’s no eyecontact made .Then,you
noticed this man,over here,who’s also scrolling through his phone and
when he takes notice of this lady,he gives his raised eyebrows look to
that lady.
 I encountered myself in this situation a few month ago, on my way
to a holiday.I was furious with that man’s reaction, but what I also
noticed was that,that reaction was demonstrated by several people in
that cabin.I kept quite and dwelt on it.I then realized that,the lady was
a special-needs person.

So special needs?What is it?In my opinion,special-needs is

euphemism for disabled and separate.Disabled- it’s a very common
term,you may have heard it in many places ,disable person,disable
people,disable individuals so many things.But separate?Have you ever
tried to link the word “separate” to that special needs? I think you
won’t.Here I did it.How did I link it?Let me explain this to you,to all of
you.

So,here we are, the normal people community;in this community,

we go to normal mainstream school.Recreational centres with swimming
pools. The families here, live in a normal social circles,but then there is
this barrier, and across this barrier is a completely different
community in which they are the special-needs families.They are being
put in a separate environment and in this separate environment ,kids go
to separate schools,the people live in a separate social circles,separate
facilities,separate services and everything with the word “separate”in
front of it.
 Why is this barrier,may I ask?

What is the need of this barrier?

This barrier is a discrimination of us ; people in this community of

them.Those people there, we have push them away,and in this,we have
harmed ourselves as well.

Let me illustrate this to you,take an example of global

warming,the harm toxins are being released into the air,toxify the
environment.But what will they also do? They will harm us because when
we inhale these toxins,it may shorten our lifespan.It may cause us to
deal with disease.It will harm us.Similarly, when we push these special-
needs people away,over there ,we will never recognite their talents.

Take an example of Nick Vijucic . He is a limbless person ,but he

is a great speaker.We embraced his talent .We welcome him with two
hands,despite his disability.Supposed to a deaf girl; she cannot
hear,but she can dance so well,maybe better than Michael Jackson,but
we will never know she had that talent because we pushed her away,We
discriminated her and my question is,if we could embrace Nick, why
cant we embrace the rest of these people?If we could tell him that yes
you are great,why cant we tell the rest they are great as well.We need
to break this barrier .I repeat we need to break this barrier.I repeat,
we need to break this barrier.

As the conclusion, I strongly stand that there’s no barrier

needed,we should merge these two communities together.we should
judge a person based on his ability,not his disability because an ability
of a person is what defines him or her.

That’s all from me.Thank you for being a nice audience.