Community Service - Leisure Options

The Yorke Peninsula Leisure Options Society are a group of intellectually disabled people who come together a few times a few to have fun and do activities with each other. We caught up with these people and helped them out to have fun and enjoy themselves. The aim for us was to assist disadvantaged people in our community with a great social environment in which to have fun, and to learn new skills, Whether it be us or them learning skills from the opposite...

Being a volunteer among these people, to me, meant that I had to help out in any way possible and enjoy myself doing it. I certainly did, as I learnt about them and how they go about things. Definitely being a volunteer among the group was a great experience for me, and I would certainly do it again.

I learnt that people with disabilities are not at all different to people without them. They can interact, play games, have fun and everything else the same, but they might just be lacking in one particular area, but this doesn't demote them at all, as I learnt how they are just the same as normal people. They do everyday things the same as us, are up to date with footy, cricket, etc. and some even hold down jobs. So overall, they are great people who can have a good time just the same as us.

I enjoyed interacting with these people, and learning all about them and their lives, and people close to them. You can have a real long chat with one of these people and not get bored, its good fun.

I least enjoyed knowing what they would go through in their lives, with people prejudging them and not giving them a chance. They would never approach these lovely people and learn actually how nice they are. It is really quite sad, but these people don't let it get in their way, they just go out there and have a fun time.

Over the leisure options program I learnt about these people and how they run their lives, as well as playing cards with them, playing cricket with them, and just having a genuine fun time in their company.