'Voice and Choice' - Picture Timetables and Computer Skills

This week I have been exploring further the development of Savy and Sokun at Epic Arts, as they uncover what they feel they need to learn in order to lead the Epic Encounters team effectively. 

This week, communication of events was high on the agenda after last weeks discussions on how best to communicate between Savy, Sokun and myself. In our last meeting we explored how we could all keep a check on our meetings and record roles and responsibilities. Both dancers expressed a desire for a personal notebook that was theirs to use in meetings. A simple request, but something that seemed to give value and importance to their new roles. A notebook that enabled independence; they could record things for themselves (in whatever way they wanted to) seemed to give them pride, ownership and a sense of responsibility in their roles.

Savy and Sokun with their note books

Due to many of the dancers, staff and students not be able to read and write, picture based timetables are a key element of communication at Epic Arts. Previously these have been made FOR the Epic Encounters team by someone else and, not BY them. As the dancers themselves do not select the images, it sometimes means they are left confused with what images meant. So Savy, Sokun and myself decided it would be much more effective for someone who uses the picture timetables themselves to make them for the rest of the team with some support.

Before we could begin to hand over the role of creating picture timetables for the team, we first had to tackle the fact that Savy has never used a computer before. Sokun has good skills in this area, so we decided that a bit of peer learning/teaching would work well here. So they set about working out together how they could make a picture timetable.

A picture timetable at Epic Arts

This exploration led to further discussions around the development of skills for the Epic Encounters team. Many only learnt to sign from the age of 15, so were unable to access education and as a result have limited reading and writing skills. Savy suggested that all the dancers could learn what he was doing on a computer....so this week Sokun has gone off to explore the small town of Kampot where we are based to see if he can find a teacher who is willing to teach a group of 8 dancers who are deaf how to use word, excel, send an email etc. These are all skills we take for granted, but for many people with disabilities in Cambodia, they are often not able to attend school and therefore do not have access to the development of these skills. 

The added difficulty here will be to find a teacher who believes that the dancers can in fact learn to use a computer, such is the attitude and perspectives surrounding people with disabilities here.