Once a year in September there comes a time when we all buy our stickers and help raise funds for the disabled people, of all colours, shapes and differences. It is a remarkable cause to support and this year we did this in our own special way at Northbay Lodge (a facility for mentally disabled adults in Durban).
Preparation for this day began almost two weeks prior with activities and refreshment planning. This all revolved around the theme ``all aboard``. So we enouraged everyone involved including the people at Northbay Lodge to dress according to this theme in red, blue and white. And my prac group that organized this all dressed up as sailors, captains, pirates, fancy cruise liner passangers and everything sea. The residents of the lodge all came in their own special twist of the sailor theme. (it was amazing to see)
Our refreshments consisted of freshy squeezed orange juice,marie biscuits made to look like fish, cupcakes with the red and blue theme, bran muffins and fruit skewers.
Our activities were: captain says (a spin off of simon says), pin the hat on the sailor, parce the parcel (where everyone got a prize in every layer), we also had a dancing session with old 80`s and 90`s music and photo booth with a huge chest of props for you to dress up in for your photos.
This photo booth went amazingly as we found the residents letting go and being allowed to act silly without it causing problems. We had to run our photobooth for an extra hour than the scheduled time because of the excitement around this photobooth. Residents even started bringing their own cameras to capture the moment. And of course when anotheer group of students from another venue came and tried to take over our photobooth, this caused more excitement amoungst the residents.
That day we saw different sides to the residents of Northbay Lodge.We saw the fun silly sides to pople. Some residents were even pretending to sword fight and die using the pirate swords.
It just goes to show even people with disabilities love to let go and be care free. Its really something to admire-how a person with so many issues can be so care free. We dont always need to be in control of everything. The change starts within, if you love who you are and control who you are it will start to manifest in the things you do . This way you wont need to change and control everything - because everything will be perfect already.
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