ASHLEY Tham, 20, raced around Clarke Quay, busked, and learned Thai land’s national anthem from a tourist – all while in a wheelchair.

Yet, the second-year Business student is not disabled; she was among the 20 teams of students and adults who participated in the Amazing Race on Wheels, a charity event organised by a group of NTU students recently.

With two of her course mates pushing the wheelchair, Tham and her team had to complete obstacles to get clues to their next station and race to the finishing line. They eventually came in second.

Among the participants were seven members of the Handicapped Welfare Association (HWA). Miss Sakina Abbasbhai, 52, an HWA member who took part in the race for the second year in a row, felt the participants should be given a chance to experience taking the public transport.

Last year, the event was jointly organised by students from the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Society for the Physically Disabled.

Participants had to take the MRT and borrow books from a public library in the wheelchair. Miss Abbasbhai said it was difficult for her to get on to a train during peak hours.

“The public does not give way as they are in a rush,” she lamented. “But why must I always give way to them, and not the other way round?”

However, Miss Suzie Ng, 60, also an HWA member, felt the current wheelchair facilities were “so much better than many years ago”, and that certain places such as shopping centers and hotels were wheelchair-friendly.

“It’s quite convenient if you know how to find the ramps,” she said.

The event, organised by four final-year Business students, aimed to raise awareness about the disabled in society, and to encourage interaction between students and people with disabilities.

They were one of the 105 teams that took part in this year’s Citibank-YMCA Youth For Causes Community Project.

As part of the project requirement, team leader Denise Lee, 20, and her friends had to execute the event to raise funds for any Singapore-registered voluntary welfare organisations.

Now in its fifth year, the project aims to promote social entrepreneurism – giving the profit of a business to beneficiaries or creating a sales concept that has a positive impact on society, according to Ho Wei Xin, 27, YMCA Volunteers Programmes executive.

CHALLENGES

The Amazing Race on Wheels raised about $5,800 from participation fees and pre-event bookmark sales. All proceeds will go to HWA.

Although Lee described the event as “not a major success”, she said the setbacks were “part and parcel of the planning process”.

Tham described her experience in the wheelchair: “I felt helpless. My friend needed to help me wherever I wanted to go. All I could do was point.”

She and her team were also unable to cross the road using the Raffles Place MRT underpass, which was inaccessible to the disabled.

For Cheryl Tan, 20, also a second-year Business student, the most significant part of the race was when she had to wheel her team mate down a flight of stairs as there was no ramp nearby.

“It was very dangerous; an accident could have occurred.”

She felt a sense of admiration for the disabled as they were very independent: “Disabilities are not an obstacle to them.”