Lana Abon October 2022 SENIA World Changer Award Recipient

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Lana Abon is a special education teacher in the rural area of Sabah, a Malaysian island state. She teaches students with hearing impairments and students with learning disorders. She has successfully trained three special needs students to qualify for Asian English Olympics, the most prestigious English language competition in Asia, in the storytelling category. The three students became the first special needs learners to ever compete in the event in 2021. This unprecedented achievement has broken another barrier for special needs learners in the region which proved that such learners can compete in events that are often reserved for non-disabled learners. The news on these students’ participation in that renowned competition became viral on the local social media pages which inspired many educators. She regularly organizes field trips for her students to travel around Sabah which she managed to finance via fundraising activities that she initiated for this specific purpose.

Congratulations to Lana Abon as the SENIA World Change Award winner for October!

Her students’ storytelling videos: https://youtu.be/9QqLsH2Hfks