They are the ones you would least expect to feel this way, but when words like "disabled", "special needs" and "handicapped" are thrown to a roomful of people who are working with persons with disabilities (PWDs), the result lends food for thought.

Almost all of them still have negative images attached to those words.

This is the observation of Mr Leo Chen Ian, one of four trainers at Explorations in Disability (EID), a four-day programme organised by the Central Singapore Community Development Council (CS CDC) aimed at changing public mindsets towards PWDs.

The EID is meant to complement the Government's initiative of enhancing the integration of PWDs in Singapore, a vision outlined in the recently released Enabling Masterplan. The idea is for a pool of 20 trainers to reach out to more than 100 participants through a multiplying effect.

So as part of a "train-the-trainer" format, 19 participants — comprising professionals in voluntary welfare organisations, special education teachers and CDC volunteers, among others — were trained over the weekend to conduct future workshops for the community. But it seemed their own perceptions needed a shift first.

By viewing those they help as "helpless", service providers and caregivers often end up robbing them of their self-dignity by making decisions for them, said Mr Leo, who is the president of the Disabled People's Association. Such decisions could be what kind of job they should take up, to even the question of whether they should date.

"It doesn't hurt by asking," he said. "By assuming that the person can't make his own decision, you're judging."

This community project is "more about changing mindsets and getting rid of stereotypes" explained EID project manager Chiang Wei Hong.

Through first-person sharing by PWDs and experiential activities like being blindfolded and going out to buy a meal, participants learn "how the people they help feel, instead of just helping them".

Mr Toh Wen Long, 19, who works with needy children at Henderson Community Club and who used to volunteer with the Blue Cross Thong Kheng Home for the Intellectually Disabled, said after yesterday's session: "I used to think that disabled people are helpless, hopeless and lost but (now) I think they are even stronger than us. They face so many problems that we will never face in our lifetime but yet are able to stand up to it." — TODAY/sh