GEORGE TOWN, Aug 28 — Every Friday evening, the visually impaired trainees living at the St Nicholas’ Home Penang are abuzz with excitement as they wait for their shuttle to the nearby Gurney Bay.
This is not just a weekly trip to visit the coastal public park but one that lets the trainees run around with sighted guide runners under the “Run with VIPs” event.
VIP is the acronym for visually impaired persons.
One of the trainees, John Fung, 22, has been participating in the weekly runs for over a month now and has even managed to convince his roommate S. Puvarasan, 18, to join in.
“This is good exercise for us and a great way to lose weight,” Fung said.
“He’s always sitting down and not doing anything, I feel this is good to get him moving, so I dragged him here to join us,” he added, gesturing to Puvarasan.
He teased Puvarasan for only managing to walk around the park instead of jogging.
Instead of running with a sighted guide, Fung, who has low vision, chose to walk with Puvarasan, making a circuit around the park.
“I wanted to motivate him, even though he can’t run,” he said.
When asked if he would join the weekly session again, Puvarasan said he might consider it.
“It was quite fun,” he said.
The duo are among some 20 trainees from St Nicholas’ Home who joined the weekly “Run with VIPs” sessions at the coastal park organised by Howei, an event management company.
Run with VIPs was initiated by Sam Shee from Howei, together with St Nicholas’ Home, last March. Shee is also one of the regular sighted runners.
Howei has also been actively recruiting volunteers to be guide runners for the VIPs.
Sighted guide runners will run alongside the VIPs and guide them using a short rope.
St Nicholas’ Home Penang general manager Carmen Chew said they have about 35 trainees who are young adults.
“We want to encourage them to join this weekly event for a healthy lifestyle,” she said.
Chew said that while the trainees can run and swim at the Home, the space is small.
“This is a larger space for them to run with guides,” she said.
The weekly running sessions have even motivated 15 of the trainees to sign up for this year’s Penang Bridge International Marathon (PBIM).
One of them is 19-year-old Teoh Emin who signed up for the 21km event at PBIM.
“When I was told we can come here to run every Friday with a guide runner, I immediately wanted to join because I like to run,” he said.
Teoh had joined a 10km running event previously and found it relatively easy.
“So this time I want to join the 21km event,” he said.
Another trainee, Soon Kok Kei, 37, signed up for the 10km event at PBIM.
Soon has low vision and is also hearing impaired so he was guided by Penang Deaf Association president Sideek Shahul Hamid.
Sideek, 52, used to join another of Howei’s weekly running events when he heard about the Run with VIPs.
“Sam told me there’s a deaf mute runner with low vision who needs a guide so I decided to join and guide him with a rope,” he said in an interview through WhatsApp.
Sideek and Soon communicated through sign language and have been running together every week for four months.
Sideek feels the weekly running sessions are a good way to bring people together and promote understanding among different communities.
“This is good exercise and at the same time, good to unite people,” he said.
Those interested to join as guide runners for Run with VIPs may register here.
