A Mind-Blowing Experience

It was August 17-18, 2008 when I joined the Youth Leadership Training for Person's With Disability held at Hope Mountain, Ulas Davao city. It was a 2 days seminar funded by the Liliane Fonds Philippines in cooperation of the Maharlika Charity Foundation. Attended by 15 differently-abled persons and it aimed to boast the self-esteem and the leadership of each PWD in their own communities. The 15 PWDs comes from the different regions in the country.

It was actually my first seminar together with my fellow PWDs.  Way back high school days, I am not really at ease and comfortable to be with this group of people (as if i'm not one of them).  Yes, that's true. I didn't even want to be of friends of them 'coz I feel pity for myself and I feel so insignificant. Seeing their situations also really makes me feel sorry and it really breaks my heart. And I realized that it was just part of the pride inside in me that it was just part of the denial phase of any person struggling. In short, di ko pa tanggap ang sitwasyon na merun ako (at that time). I believed it's really in us (PWDs). I mean, we really encounter this stage of ours and its tough.

This was the seminar that I learned to accept myself that I belong to the PWD group and there's nothing wrong. I enjoyed every moments that we've shared, that we laughed at our own disabilities. We even shared the same sentiments and able to exchanged our own experiences.  It was a great experience and something that I will always treasure for it opened my mind with the realities and gave me the chance  to embraced the value of being a PWD. Indeed, it was a mind-blowing experience.

With Fellow PWDs from Davao