SPEECH ON THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF DISABLED PEOPLE 30 NOV 2007
Organised by Fairfield Council, Sydney, Australia.
Good morning everyone,
My name is Thi Duyen Lam, I am the co-ordinator of the Vietnamese Parents with Disabled Children Support Group in NSW, and I have a daughter with Down syndrome who is twenty-eight years old. I would like to thank Mrs Audrey Lai and the organisers for the opportunity to talk with you on the International Day of Disabled People. The topic of my talk is our Support Group and the group’s activities.
When I first gave birth to my daughter, there was no information on Down syndrome or any disabilities in Vietnamese. I had only little English and did not know what Down syndrome was and there was no one to explain to my husband and myself what we need to do for our child. In her first sixteen years, my husband and I did our best to care for our daughter in isolation. I kept going to the libraries looking for information on Down syndrome in Vietnamese but found none. I thought only our family has a child with Down syndrome, but gradually I looked around and realised that there are other families with disabled children too. Therefore in 1999, we started the Support Group with the purpose of being there for each other. At first it was to give emotional support as only we can fully understand what other parents have been through, then we realised that in order to help our children to develop, to give them proper care we need to understand their disabilities. So we shift our focus to having information on disabilities available in Vietnamese for parents, and raising awareness about the issue of disabilities in the Vietnamese community. This becomes our main goal since, and from 1999 to date, the Support Group has published seven books on disabilities in Vietnamese, they are:
- Down syndrome, translated from the book by Dr. Mark Selikowitz.
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Books written by members in the group are:
- Raising a Child with Autism.
- Understanding Autism
- Asperger Syndrome and Non-Verbal Learning Disability
- Autism and Treatments: A Guide for Parents
- Down Syndrome and Treatments: A Guide for Parents
- Cerebral Palsy and Treatments: A Guide for Parents
And two booklets:
- Care for Disabled Children
- How to Choose Schools
These are the first books in Vietnamese not only in Australia but also in the world to help parents understand their children and their disabilities. There is a great demand for these books from everywhere, we have parents from Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide asking to have copies sent to them, but also parents from Holland, Japan, France, America. To reach out to the wider communities in Australia and overseas, members of the group spend their weekends to distribute these books to local libraries all over Australia, and also in Canada, America, France, Germany,Vietnam. People learn of the books by word of mouth, very often we have a mother or an aunt asking for a copy sent to their daughter, their niece in America or Holland, because the daughter just has test results showing the foetus may have Down syndrome, or the aunt observes that her niece’s son shows symptoms of autism. The response to these books is overwhelming, now parents have information to refer to, learn how to care properly for their children and increase the quality of life for them, now the community can understand the children’s behaviours and sympathise with parents. Government agencies also ask for copies of these books for their clients, like Child Care centres, various Offices for Disabled People, ADEC in Melbourne, schools. All the books are donated to public libraries and organisations.
In addition to these books, we went to Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane to give talks to organisations that work with disabled people, we also went back twice to Vietnam to give talks to staff at children hospitals, parents groups, donate books to the hospitals, the Faculty of Special Education, and Parents’ Groups. Our publications have reached quite a large number of families in Australia and other countries, in December next month, we’ll launch our website on the internet so that parents everywhere will have the books and other information about Down syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy online. You can access our website to learn more about our group and to download information about disabilities in Vietnamese for your own use or for your clients. This is certainly good news, and a very happy development, different from twenty-seven years ago when my daughter was born and we had no book on Down syndrome. The Support Group has definitely made a big improvement in the lives of disabled Vietnamese children and their parents.
We can only have these achievements with help from many people, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Audrey Lai, who has helped the group from the early days, and has generously given her time, her expertise to guide us through the running of a non-profit organisation. Our success to some extent is due to Audrey’s valuable contribution. So to Audrey, a big thank you.
That’s my story. Thank you, all of you.
Thi Duyen Lam, OAM.