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Celebration of International Day of Disabled People |
Preparations for the Day of Disabled People began far in advance, recruiting sponsors, arranging venues and catering, inviting speakers and exhibitors. At the Deaf Development Program, the staff prepared an exhibit that was quite popular. Here Samath, Lodin, and Justin Smith put together a photo display of DDP activities.
United States Ambassador Charles Ray was one of the speakers at the opening ceremony, and he was most to the point. He made several very concrete suggestions about actions that the Cambodian government should undertake to benefit people with disabilities in the kingdom. Here he was being welcomed to the ceremony.
Practically every ceremony and event in Cambodia begins with a blessing by Buddhist monks. The more formal the ceremony, the more monks are invited to participate. Here the monks are presented with gifts of appreciation and respect before they leave. The main VIP, the Secretary of Education, is on his knees as he makes the presentation.
Another tradition at almost every ceremony is a classical Khmer dance of welcome. These young girls are from the Krousar Thmey school for deaf students near Phnom Penh. Although they cannot hear the music performed by blind students from another Krousar Thmey school, they are very skilled in Khmer dance.
One of the newest schools for children with physical disabilities is the Lavalla School run by the Marist Brothers, a Catholic religious community from Australia, but already their school and its program have become a model for education for disabled children in Cambodia. Here Lavalla students sing in the opening ceremony.
Throughout the day, various disability groups performed on the stage to entertain the hundreds of people with disabilities who spent the day in Hun Sen Park where the celebration was held. This trio of singers is from one of the blind groups.
The deaf people, less interested in the activity on the stage which was aimed at hearing people, used their time together to catch up on each other, chatting in small groups throughout the day.
Every kind of limp and prosthetic was visible at the celebration, but today it didn't matter. The people with disabilities didn't stand out because most of the people there had a disability. One young man told me he took off from work to come because "Today is my day!"
Quite a few of the people with disabilities know Maryknoll and know me because they went to the Wat Than Skills Training program which was administered by Maryknoll until earlier this year. It was good to meet up again with some of the former students from Wat Than.
At the end of the day, after all the popular games were completed, the staff of the Disability Action Council, the organizers of the celebration, handed out prizes to the winning teams and individuals.