- The campus behind Meng Cafe
We observed two club activities and one individual training in this field trip. The first club activity is making a ukulele. The special school invited teachers to their school to hold these workshops. In this class, the teachers were teaching the students how to decorate the ukulele and install the strings to the ukulele. I found out that some students are very willing to talk to us, while some just keep doing the work and keep silence. One little boy from grade nine was trying to catch our attention and talked loudly. I also noticed that a little girl shew hand heart to as when we entered their classroom. I can feel that she is willing to talk to us but she is too shy. I walked close to her when she kept looking at me, and after that, she whispered at my ear that “Can we make friends? I like you so much and you are pretty”. I felt so happy and excited not only because she likes me but also because she took the initiative to talk to me. I learned from Zhang Laoshi that this girl was afraid of talking to others and having eye contact with people before. After the training at the special school, she got better but still didn’t talk to others much. It’s rare for her to talk to someone that she met for the first time. I felt that during this class, besides helping our partner by making a project for him or her, communicating more and making friends with him or her is also an important way to help them.
After that, we went to observe another club activity, which is paper artwork. This activity is held by some volunteers. In this class, the students will keep curving the long scrips of different colors and used them to make artwork. The volunteers said that by doing this kind of repetitive work, these kids can calm down and control their emotions better. In this classroom, we saw lots of artworks made by the kids in this special school and the high quality of these artworks really surprised us.
b. Meng cafe
We pretended to be normal customers when we entered the cafe to observe the employees. There is an employee who is very sensitive to numbers standing at the gate to greet the customers and count the visitors. When greeting us, he naturally guided us to the order desk, which is really professional. When ordering, the cashier was also familiar with everything and asked us if we wanted iced or hot Latte. During the communication, we didn’t feel that she is disabled at all. The employees who make coffee also surprised me since they did the Latte art very well and also tasted good. Some employees are not as professional as others. For example, when I asked one girl to give us some tissue, she just pointed to the front desk and told me I can get tissue there.
We got more information from the communication with Manager Yu and one employee’s mother. We learned that this is the first cafe with disable employees in Shanghai and just opened five months ago, which is still not a mature system. Young told us that there are more than twenty cafes like this in Korea and the first one opened about 13 years ago, which means the development of the workplace for people with disabilities in Shanghai still has a long way to go. But admittedly, it is a promising start since Meng cafe is supported by many people and media. I felt Meng cafe is a cozy community for the employees since Manager Yu treated them like her own children. She required every employee to write a diary every day to check their psychological states. She said that these employees with autism or Down’s syndrome don’t always express their feelings to others, but they will write what they think in the diary so that she can help them to improve their mental health through this way. She also mentioned that although some workplaces also provide some operating posts to disable people, such as Starbucks, they can’t get care and concern that they need in these working places since people around them are all normal people. It would be hard for them to really blend in with other colleagues. Everything is different in Meng cafe. In Meng cafe, their colleagues are also friends with them since they all graduated from Zhonghua vocation school. The customers will also show understanding and sympathy for them since they know the employees are people with disabilities. They have Manager Yu, who treats them like her own children. Meng cafe is a warm and united community, where these special kids can not only get a job and prepare to integrate into society better but also live happily. Another information that Manager Yu told us which stroke my heart is that these kids only have friends in Meng cafe and it’s hard for them to know other people, which means they may only have several friends. Therefore, the same as what I said in the former reflection, we should not only focus on simply making a project for our partner but also communicate with them as a friend.
