Youth Help Shape New Campaign to Spotlight Those With Invisible Disabilities

In secondary school, Mr Thaddaeus John Tham Yong Yi struggled with spelling and grammar. He was barely passing his English composition essays.

- Clay Lim

Mr Tham has dyslexia, an invisible disability that affects his reading and writing skills.

Unaware of his condition, his classmates wondered why he was poor in the English language.

When he later entered Ngee Ann Polytechnic to study biomedical engineering, the feeling of isolation deepened.

This changed when he found help from TomoWork, a Singapore charity which advocates disability inclusion at companies.

Mr Tham, 20, has now stepped up to help raise awareness of people with invisible disabilities like himself.

The polytechnic graduate is part of a group of youth who worked with TomoWork to help shape a new campaign called Infinity Within.

The year-long campaign, announced at the Tomo Day 2025 event at Republic Polytechnic on June 12, calls for greater support for people with invisible disabilities such as autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, and partial hearing or vision loss in Singapore.