Light from a blind teacher | Gia Lai Electronic Newspaper

Anyone passing by the Huong Duong Viet Quang Nam Private Center for Supporting and Developing InclusiveEducation on Le Nhan Tong Street (An Phu Ward, Tam Ky City, Quang Nam Province) would never have guessed that the founder and operator for the past 15 years was a teacher who could not see the light.

Teacher Dang Ngoc Duy teaches disabled children. Photo: Manh Cuong

Passed two elementary school diplomas

Teacher Dang Ngoc Duy humorously said that when recounting his fate as well as his difficult journey to find letters. Born in 1976 in Tam Ky, Quang Nam when the country was at peace . But the war had not yet let up, explosives had taken away the eyes and half of the left hand of the boy Duy, who was just over 10 years old at that time.

Losing his sight and hands at a very young age, Duy fell into depression and melancholy for quite a long time. But the desire to go to school and become a normal person urged him to find himself again. And the first thing was studying. Knowing that in Ho Chi Minh City there were many places that taught the blind, Duy wrote an application to enroll, but was rejected because he was too old. Luckily, in 1992, Nguyen Dinh Chieu Specialized High School in Da Nang was established, and the teenager Dang Ngoc Duy, now 16 years old, was accepted to enroll, but had to repeat grades 1 to 5. The teacher jokingly said, "If people have two university degrees, I have two... elementary school degrees." When he was no longer old enough to study, Duy returned to Tam Ky to continue his integration into grade 7 with his sister. People learn with their eyes, but he learned with his ears.

Then, after 4 more years of struggle and anxiety, Duy was able to enter the Faculty of Literature at Quang Nam University of Education. In the first exam season, there was no mechanism to train people with disabilities in the teaching profession. Since the following year, when he was allowed to take the exam, he failed the university entrance exam 3 times in a row, due to pressure, insomnia and poor health. Regardless of everyone's right and wrong opinions, the young man Dang Ngoc Duy still persevered in studying for the university entrance exam, and then achieved his wish.

“I may not go fast, but I certainly do not go backwards”, that is the motto that helps the blind young man overcome all his difficulties. Whenever he feels helpless and discouraged, he writes poetry, learns to play the guitar, composes music. And he puts on his backpack and a cane and travels to every land to recharge his energy and will.

Not only writing poems published in many newspapers and magazines, disabled teacher Dang Ngoc Duy also composed hundreds of songs despite having only half of his left hand to play the guitar. In April 2022, he released the album "Vietnam sings up" with 11 selected songs praising the homeland, country, and life, performed by singers and disabled children at the center. As the teacher's poem says, "Although I am disabled/Although happiness turns its back/In a cruel life/Still a song of love/Each life is small/Living is to love/The waves of our life beat/To add fragrance to the shore".

Light up others

He was over 30 years old and just graduated from university with nothing but darkness in front of his eyes. His family was poor in a poor neighborhood. “I feel sorry for my father who rides a rickshaw around/His sweat glistening in the rain and storm, his thin figure” is the poem Duy wrote about his father.

Worried about the fate of disabled people like himself, Dang Ngoc Duy came to a surprising decision, which was to establish a center to support less fortunate children.

Then, in 2008, Sunflower Shelter was born in a rented house, with a budget of several tens of millions of dong that had been raised over a long period of time, along with the support of the family. Dang Ngoc Duy's first collection of poems, "Colors of Sound", was published at that time, also to sell and raise money to establish the shelter. The collection of poems was introduced by poet Do Trung Quan: "Those who see the sun may not know that it is the sun. Those who close their eyes sometimes shine brightly in their hearts. Duy just closes his eyes and looks at the sun".

An art class at the center. Photo: Manh Cuong

Establishing this shelter is just the first step in Mr. Duy's plan to raise disabled children. "I still remember the first difficult days of recruiting students in Bac Tra My, an ethnic Ca Dong area, around Tet. I was blind and had to climb mountains and wade through streams when I suddenly encountered a flood and almost died..." There were countless initial difficulties, but fortunately, the good news spread far and wide, and many benefactors came to help.

From a shelter of 21 disabled students with only 1 classroom and 1 bedroom in an old rented house, with many difficulties and many relocations, after 15 years of operation, the shelter has now become a spacious and well-organized Huong Duong Viet Quang Nam Private Inclusive Education Support and Development Center, which is raising, providing career guidance and teaching giftedness to over 50 disadvantaged children, those with visual impairments, hearing impairments, autism... The children are taught culture from preparatory class to grade 5 and gifted and career guidance subjects, while continuing to integrate into higher education levels.

Now the center has a much larger area than before, with cultural classrooms, a singing and musical talent room with a variety of musical instruments, a career guidance room, and a spacious dining room. The large playground helps children play freely. Visiting the center, you will always see the playing and singing of less fortunate children. Today's achievements are built by Mr. Dang Ngoc Duy and other benefactors and teachers, from a heart full of love and sharing.

An art class at the center. Photo: Manh Cuong

“A normal school has 40-50 students in a class, but here, 10 students in a class is too many. Each student has a different type of disability, so when teaching, the knowledge is also all sorts of “mixed”, and many students are naughty due to their illness, so tutoring and taking care of them is very difficult, requiring teachers to be very patient and loving,” a teacher at the center shared.

After 15 years, many disabled children from this shelter have become students, many of them work as mechanics, workers, etc. “In the past, when I taught, there was a blind child who is now in 11th grade. The first days teaching him how to write in a 6-letter box were very difficult, because he could not visualize the letters. I thought for a long time, and finally came up with a way to make a wooden bar with 6 holes, then put nails in it so he could feel and practice pinning the nails into those holes. A box of letters as big as a hand so he could touch and visualize. He overcame the difficulties and is currently pursuing his education,” teacher Duy recalled.

According to Manh Cuong (TPO)

Original article link: https://tienphong.vn/anh-sang-tu-thay-giao-mu-post1534933.tpo

Source link