Service Learning - Society

In the last few blogs, I’ve noticed that I’ve talked a lot of societal rules and how society often views mentally and physically disabled folks. Often times, I referred to Anh Thai’s statement about how often times, they are seen as reincarnations of a bad spirit or something. This still goes through my mind often whenever I look at my students. Do others see them as bad souls? Do they see disabled people as people who cannot be helped? In a society that can easily labels people for their capabilities, rather than their potential improvement, I wonder how these societal labels affect these students and the organization and what agency do they have to push back. It’s that push and pull struggle between society and individual agency.

Even with all of Hoa Binh Thanh Xuan’s questionable practices and living standards, I still believe Hoa Binh is a good place. They do many things to help the students here. For example, although I question some of the physical therapists’ techniques, they nonetheless have gotten the children they work with to walk. In the beginning of the year, one of the cutest girls ever named Linh would take 30 minutes to walk 4 feet. Now, she is walking much faster and with much more confidence. (She still loves to be held affectionately though). Other students are also like that. Before, they would cry at the thought of being forced to walk but now, some of them have gotten much better. They can walk a couple of steps by themselves without falling. In many ways, Hoa Binh still believes in physically disabled children and their ability to improve and get better. They also help many families that are looking for a place for their children to continue learning in the classrooms.

At the same time, they sometimes treat the students poorly. They sleep in very crappy conditions and often times, the classrooms dissolve into singing and dancing and very little academic learning. Once again though, this is probably due to financial constraints. I can’t help but think that it also stems from a certain attitude though. The way people talk about these students are like “they are not normal”. In a sense, they’re humanity is taken away. They are not human enough to fully function and to earn the same amount of respect and form of living as others. I’m not too sure.

So I feel like there’s this struggle between Hoa Binh and society. Hoa Binh is sort of a place where many disabled folks are casted into one place to be reserved from others to see. At the same time, they provide a nice and safe environment for folks to find others like them. While they may have negative attitudes about disabled children, at the same time, they are helping many of them progress in their mental and physical capabilities. While being affected by what others have to say about them, they are also pushing back and helping many disabled children navigate through society. Thus, its this constant interaction between society and the agency of an individual or a body of people.