Mr Vroom's Journey

Mr Vroom was a teenager when he got into a road traffic accident that changed his life forever. He acquired a  spinal cord injury at C6/C7 region and was left paralysed from his chest down. Mr Vroom was hospitalised  and subsequently discharged to a community hospital where he became a permanent resident under special  circumstances. He went through rehabilitation and became independent in community mobility using a  motorised wheelchair. However, he was a shy individual and had low confidence. Thus, he only went out with his family or old friends and visited familiar places in his wheelchair. 

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The community hospital referred him to a vocational rehabilitation programme in the community. He was  exposed to mouth painting for the first time when he attempted painting a Christmas Hippo. The more he  painted with other people with disabilities within the programme, the more he enjoyed it. During one of Mr  Vroom's Occupational Therapy sessions, he voiced out the difficulties he faced in doing mouth painting outside of the programme. He wanted a portable easel so that it would be easy for him to participate in  mouth painting outside of the programme. However, financially he was not able to afford a portable easel  available in the market. Mr Vroom's Occupational Therapist (OT) contacted a social enterprise that could  assist in making one, but both Mr Vroom and his OT would have to build it themselves.

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Subsequent Occupational therapy sessions required Mr Vroom to plan his journey around new places to  source for materials and speak to others within the social enterprise in expressing his needs or wants. Mr  Vroom's OT provided inputs to the social enterprise team on ways to make the machinery safe for Mr Vroom  to use during the building process. The collaboration between Mr Vroom, the OT and the social enterprise  team gave Mr Vroom the opportunity to be meaningfully engaged throughout the process. Mr Vroom was also given the choice & autonomy over his product. 

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After the creation of the easel and at the point of discharge from the vocational rehabilitation programme, Mr  Vroom was more confident in going out to new places, making new friends and participating in more painting related events. He has also started earning an income by selling off his paintings as well.