CONDUCTIVE WORLD: SOUTH-EAST ASIA

Conductors, parents, don't miss this boat

At the end of last month Google Alerts announced the first entries to the newly published website of GAPS (an acronym for the Malay words meaning Alliance for Children with Cerebral Palsy). The Alliance was established last year by an enthusiastic group of parents and supporters.

Since its inception, GAPS (good English acronym, that) has organised workshops like Augmentative and Alternative Communication and Disability Equality Training to educate members and the public on disability issues, and promote social inclusion and awareness at the same time. It further strategic plans include sports and inclusion, awareness, education and support, tools and assistive devices – and Conductive Education –

GAPS provides a platform of holistic support and actively promotes the concept of Conductive Education which has proven beneficial for children with cerebral palsy. The long-term goal of GAPS is to establish a one-stop centre for the intervention, education, rehabilitation, care and research and development for cerebral palsy.

http://cerebralpalsy.org.my/

Click the live link in the paragraph quoted here, and compare addresses, for the reason for this special advocacy of CE, and the aspiration for a one-stop centre, to become clear.

And why not? All power to their elbows. It is surprising that relatively few CE centres round the world have followed the strategy of creating a one-stop centre within a one-stop voluntary organisation.

South-East Asia

Perhaps it is a major advantage to be among the fast-developing, technologically sophisticated societies of South East Asia, still largely virgin territory in the development of services for motor-disordered children and adults, and their families, Perhaps it also helps to be centred in Kuala Lumpur, one of the world great modern cities – with the attitudes that go with this. Certainly it is a priceless advantage not to be hidebound, ossified ways of doing and thinking...

The West has to recognise that it is not just 'China' that is catching up and overtaking it technically and economically. The often dynamic and highly capable societies of South-East Asia are following fast behind. Malaysia has a population of some thirty million – but over six-hundred million people live in the countries of South-East Asia as a whole*, with English as a major common language. By way of comparison, the US has a population of 321 million, and the EU's (present) population is 510 million.

So far, as alluded to above, there is presently one CE service up and running in South-East Asia, Step and Smile in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.

So, at a time of economic shortage and professional competition for resources in CE's 'old countries', enterprising people in Conductive Education have a window of opportunity to offer their wares to open-minded and internationally oriented societies in often paradisiacal settings – before the competition moves in with its closed shops and its established, antithetical theories, models, practices and services.

Young people of Conductive Education, when considering your options to develop and extent your practice in new, virgin territories, seriously consider going East, specifically South East...

Internet resources, to date...

GAPS (Gabungan Anak-Anak Palsi Serebrum)

http://cerebralpalsy.org.my /

Step and Smile

http://stepandsmile.com/

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/stepandsmile/

A video

https://www.facebook.com/1453600371550201/videos/1880268715550029/

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