BACKGROUND AND HISTORY
The Birth of a Vision
In early 2017, four families of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Kota Kinabalu Sabah, came together because of a mutual concern for the latter’s future living arrangement in the eventuality when they, the parents and care givers are no longer around to ensure their well-being.
At the time of the group coming together, all four adults were trainees of a well-known day training centre whose training goals for them were towards adult living, social inclusion and employment.
The then person-in-charge of the training programmes and services of that day training centre became their adviser and facilitator towards realizing the vision of setting up a permanent residence for these adults with special needs.
The plan was to set up a group home for them, located within mainstream community life; a home which they can share together, a place to come back to, and a place to live out the rest of their lives meaningfully, productively, together with their friends.
Group home living (👈click for more) for the disabled is not a new concept and has been successfully implemented in other
developed countries, but is a relatively new idea in Sabah.
House Hunting & Challenges Faced
The families with the adviser began to scout around the Kota Kinabalu district for suitable landed houses to rent.
Ideally, the location must be in a safe neighbourhood, near to essential facilities such as shops for grocery buying, eateries for an occasional outside meal, and a clinic or hospital. The house itself must be spacious enough for 4 to 6 residents to live comfortably with ample kitchen space for meal preparations, and outdoors compound for leisure and gardening activities.
(At this point in the narrative, the writer will change from using "they" to "we" when referring to this group of families)
We began to view several potential houses but the reactions of the house owners were generally the same. It is unfortunate that ignorance and hence, prejudices towards people with special needs still exist. A few were outright unwilling to rent their houses to us as soon as they knew who it was intended for. Others were hesitant and posing questions that they would not think of asking regular tenants.
These house owners had underestimated our well trained and well behaved adult children's ability to live properly in their houses with no problem arising. This negative perception is despite knowing a house manager will be staying with the residents.
Yes, in our society, a stigma is still attached with the word “disabilities”. Sad, isn’t it?
It is undeniable that this negativity towards our adult children had some effect on us emotionally. But at the same time had made us more resolute to forge ahead to make sure the group home becomes a reality; to prove our detractors wrong, and to inspire other families to do the same for their own special needs adult children.
We are determined that this can be done, will be done no matter the challenges ahead.
Was the attitude of those house owners and the inability to rent a house the only challenges faced by us? Unfortunately, not.
In 2019, one of our adults with special needs lost both his parents within 8 months of each other, leaving his elderly paternal aunt as his care giver to carry on with accomplishing this group home project for her nephew.
Then in 2020, another one of us, an elderly widowed mother had a serious sickness and could no longer carry on with us on the difficult road to make this happen.
In the midst of these challenges, and after a period of house hunting scattered throughout the years 2018 and 2019, finally good news about a house!
On the 4th of March 2020, we were told that a house belonging to one of our families was available to be used, after the previous occupant had moved out.
It is located in a quiet and safe neighbourhood. Although it is a very
old dilapidated building with surrounding overgrowth, it did not deter us from seeing its potential to be transformed into a very pleasant and
liveable home.
But suddenly the covid-19 pandemic came into Malaysia and lockdown began on the 18th of March 2020 before we could even discuss and plan on how to move forward with this.
Our vision was put on hold again!
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