Migration, the term that describes a species which for its continued survival, it must leave a place for better pastures and to exploit better food sources, the term now drives with many Singaporeans especially these recent years, to leave the country for new worlds.
View attachment 2038
This trend is also catching on in the special needs community here in Singapore as well. Meetings with other parents with special needs children, those diagnosed with ADHD, Autism or some other learning differences, also mentioned that they are rushing to send their children away from this little red dot for the sake of their continued survival.
As founding members of an online group for Singaporeans with special needs, we also see a sort of *Sarong Party Girl syndrome where much of the group members here. We tend to perceive overseas influences more superior than local ones. As seen in the poll attached to this article, many members have stated that they wanted to leave Singapore to a country that accepts their condition and need for individuality.
However, we fully understand the concerns of some of our members and the parents for their adult children. We are not people who really subscribes to the idea of leaving the place that we have spent more than 20 years of my life.
This has nothing to do with patriotism. Both of us recently also became disillusioned with the way society here is becoming, with the way some people who have different ideas are being treated here. We are not alone in this situation. The special needs community as a group is just as dissatisfied as we are, with our society. We know a few special needs Singaporeans who managed to save up enough to leave.
However, what we don?t quite see eye to eye with some Singaporeans planning to leave is - some of them, if not most of them, actually took emigration as a trivial matter, to be taken with merely a pinch of salt.
It is indeed hard to immigrate to other countries.
In addition, traditionally, immigrants end up in equal, if not lower societal standings than what they enjoy in their home countries. In the course of Singapore's history as a trading post for the past 200 years, millions of Malays, Indians and Chinese had moved to Singapore to become labourers and farmers, only recently benefitting due to Singapore's economic boom, which is going to end if current economic challenges are not addressed or rectified.
SG-quitters and Gilbert Goh?s blogs both caution against impulsive immigration to other countries, such as Canada and Australia. For most immigrants to other countries, they have to contend with culture shock, the willingness to start from the bottom, the long hard slog to be recognized as a citizen there as well as the ability to adapt to new surroundings is steeper, than the learning curve to continue live as a Singaporean, without the benefit of familial support.
Specifically for people with special needs, it is equally hard, if not harder, for our friends to receive adequate social and emotional support needed for even adaptation to a new land. Services for people with special needs are often prohibitive in costs, or are simply inaccessible due to a shortage of such service, in other countries such as the United States and Japan.
This was especially so after the 2011 General Elections. Even more so for the special needs community, saying that because Singapore has no place for them. We feel that we should be the change that we wish to see in society. We should help build society, instead of merely disparaging it and doing nothing about it.
We challenge parents and special needs children to think about it:
?Are your sure that going overseas is the best thing for your ___disorder child, or for you??
We have the need to undeceive the illusion that escaping to another land is the solution for the Singapore special needs community's troubles. No matter where they head to, they will always face distresses. They could be overbearing to many special needs individuals to bear. This itself could be a overpowering reason for special needs Singaporeans to leave the land we are born and bred.
However, for those who have to stay here, we have to work together for a better tomorrow for all of us. Unless our special needs community as a whole do our best to face our common challenges together, our limitations could not be better understood, our potentials will not be fulfilled, and we will be thrown into chaos when all of us are in deep water. Only through building our society together, we can fulfill our potentials to make our society a more caring and accepting society for all.
*Singaporean term for girls who are so obsessed with Western culture that they only date Caucasians, adopt a foreign acent and dying their hair with the wide spectrum of hair colours biologically plausible for mammals.
Edited.
View attachment 2038
This trend is also catching on in the special needs community here in Singapore as well. Meetings with other parents with special needs children, those diagnosed with ADHD, Autism or some other learning differences, also mentioned that they are rushing to send their children away from this little red dot for the sake of their continued survival.
As founding members of an online group for Singaporeans with special needs, we also see a sort of *Sarong Party Girl syndrome where much of the group members here. We tend to perceive overseas influences more superior than local ones. As seen in the poll attached to this article, many members have stated that they wanted to leave Singapore to a country that accepts their condition and need for individuality.
However, we fully understand the concerns of some of our members and the parents for their adult children. We are not people who really subscribes to the idea of leaving the place that we have spent more than 20 years of my life.
This has nothing to do with patriotism. Both of us recently also became disillusioned with the way society here is becoming, with the way some people who have different ideas are being treated here. We are not alone in this situation. The special needs community as a group is just as dissatisfied as we are, with our society. We know a few special needs Singaporeans who managed to save up enough to leave.
However, what we don?t quite see eye to eye with some Singaporeans planning to leave is - some of them, if not most of them, actually took emigration as a trivial matter, to be taken with merely a pinch of salt.
It is indeed hard to immigrate to other countries.
In addition, traditionally, immigrants end up in equal, if not lower societal standings than what they enjoy in their home countries. In the course of Singapore's history as a trading post for the past 200 years, millions of Malays, Indians and Chinese had moved to Singapore to become labourers and farmers, only recently benefitting due to Singapore's economic boom, which is going to end if current economic challenges are not addressed or rectified.
SG-quitters and Gilbert Goh?s blogs both caution against impulsive immigration to other countries, such as Canada and Australia. For most immigrants to other countries, they have to contend with culture shock, the willingness to start from the bottom, the long hard slog to be recognized as a citizen there as well as the ability to adapt to new surroundings is steeper, than the learning curve to continue live as a Singaporean, without the benefit of familial support.
Specifically for people with special needs, it is equally hard, if not harder, for our friends to receive adequate social and emotional support needed for even adaptation to a new land. Services for people with special needs are often prohibitive in costs, or are simply inaccessible due to a shortage of such service, in other countries such as the United States and Japan.
This was especially so after the 2011 General Elections. Even more so for the special needs community, saying that because Singapore has no place for them. We feel that we should be the change that we wish to see in society. We should help build society, instead of merely disparaging it and doing nothing about it.
We challenge parents and special needs children to think about it:
?Are your sure that going overseas is the best thing for your ___disorder child, or for you??
We have the need to undeceive the illusion that escaping to another land is the solution for the Singapore special needs community's troubles. No matter where they head to, they will always face distresses. They could be overbearing to many special needs individuals to bear. This itself could be a overpowering reason for special needs Singaporeans to leave the land we are born and bred.
However, for those who have to stay here, we have to work together for a better tomorrow for all of us. Unless our special needs community as a whole do our best to face our common challenges together, our limitations could not be better understood, our potentials will not be fulfilled, and we will be thrown into chaos when all of us are in deep water. Only through building our society together, we can fulfill our potentials to make our society a more caring and accepting society for all.
*Singaporean term for girls who are so obsessed with Western culture that they only date Caucasians, adopt a foreign acent and dying their hair with the wide spectrum of hair colours biologically plausible for mammals.
Edited.
