Publication > Newsletter > Newsletter 23 > Interview Corner

Interview Corner

Ms. Mayumi Narazaki, JICA Short-term Expert Self-Advocacy Group "Sunflower", Japan

There are many friends of mine with disabilities that got together to form the Sunflower Group.In the beginning when I started the group, I was interested in getting a license to look after elderly persons and also a driving license.The goal of the Sunflower Group is for persons with disabilities to get together and volunteer for other persons, like elderly persons who need care and children who need service. It's not difficult for me to recruit members. Not many persons with disabilities want to study. The majority of persons with intellectual disabilities prefer self-funded recreational activity. So I'm planning to persuade persons that learning or studying is important. For example, they could study how to get a job or a license. I don't tell others that studying is important but they will tell each other. As a resource person from this training, I hope when the participants go back to their country, they will have lots of friends - make friends and talk more among themselves when they get together and talk. And I hope that they will be proud and love themselves. I really enjoyed this self-advocacy workshop. I think it was fun!

Mr. Preecha Preeyotchaisan, (Self-advocate)

My nickname is 'Ae'. I'm a 22 year-old farmer and come from Nakhorn Ratchasima province. My home includes my parents, brother in-law, my younger sister and one niece. I'm the elder in my family. I enjoyed this course because I could learn from the different experiences of the other participants. In this training course I wished to gain as much experience and knowledge from others. I went to Makro to observe how the autistic children sell their cookies and also we went to the Thai Autism Vocational Centre to see their daily activities.Activities provided at the Centre were very interesting such as fitness, a garden and much more. It's quite different from where I live because the Centre is situated in the city area, not isolated. I am a committee member at my Centre. For sure, I'll tell everyone in my Centre about the knowledge gained and experiences shared in this training!

Mr. Johari Bin Jamali United Voice (Coordinator), Malaysia

Mr. Johari Bin Jamali
United Voice (Coordinator), Malaysia I'm the President of the United Voices of Self-Help Groups for persons with disabilities. My experience with self-advocacy is to fight for our rights. For example, we wrote a letter to the public transport in Kuala Lumpur which they didn't accept. We were still fighting for it so they came to our Centre. A few months later they finally accepted our request.

Ms. Payanart Sookcharoen Association for the Mentally Retarded of Thailand (Self-Advocate)

I'm a volunteer for Archan Daranee to look after children with intellectual disabilities by taking care of them, feeding them and cleaning. This is the first time for me to visit APCD; before I never knew about this at all. It's very helpful that APCD organized this workshop for ID persons to discuss their opinions and share their needs and experiences. I've learned a lot from this workshop; for example, the problem of a parent of an ID child is what their child will do after his/her parent passes away. I'm very grateful that APCD and JICA gave me a chance to attend the conference in Shanghai which was my first time to travel by plane. I'm also happy with Mr. Nagase and APCD's staff members. I'm really speechless because I'm very grateful for their support to make me feel more comfortable to express my feelings and want to participate more in social activities. I used to stay alone and didn't like to join others. I'll help others by talking to ID persons and their parents about self-help activities.

[

] [

] [

]