PETERTAN.COM is the convergence of two homepages that I have been tinkering on for a while now. It is the simmering labour of love that has spilled over. I love designing web pages and this site shall be a learning process for me to do just that and show it to the world.

is a collection of my thoughts expressed in verses. I have written poems as a form of escapism in the initial years after my injury. Most of them have been lost together with the floppy disks that were infested with fungus and discarded. This is a concerted effort to archive and share my poems in a media that is easily accessible and difficult to misplace.

is the first site I created when I began to learn web-designing. That was back in 1997. SCI is one of the most debilitating injuries where the physiology of the human body below the level of injury is completely altered in ways one can never imagine. It is like growing up all over again, trying to understand the processes of the body that no longer function the way they used to.

Angel In My Midst was created in memory of my Mother who passed on to be with the Lord on July 11, 2003. Mum was, and still is, instrumental to my recovery after the spinal cord injury.

Initial Funding
The initial funding of PETERTAN.COM was provided by Wuan. She has been very generous with her support and is instrumental to the fruition of this site.

About Peter Tan

Peter Tan became severely disabled at the age of 18 after he injured his spinal cord diving into a swimming pool in 1984. He has been using a wheelchair since. Faced with physical and attitudinal barriers wherever he went, he became an advocate for an accessible and inclusive Malaysia. He is a prolific writer on disability issues in his blog called The Digital Awakening.

He was trained in Malaysia, Japan and Bangkok as a peer counselor for the Independent Living Programme for People with Disabilities. This project is supported by the Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat Malaysia (Department of Social Welfare Malaysia) and Japan International Cooperation Agency to empower severely disabled persons to live independently in the community through self-respect, self-determination and social reformation.

He is also a Disability Equality Training (DET) Trainer. DET is widely used in the public and private sectors in the United Kingdom to address the need for information on disability and equality. This includes promoting disability as an equal opportunity issue, examining the barriers faced by disabled people in society, questioning stereotypes, myths and misconceptions about disability, promoting effective communication between disabled people and non-disabled people and promoting positive change both in policy and practice.

He was a speaker at the 7th World Assembly of Disabled Peoples’ International and Global Summit on Independent Living in Seoul, Korea in 2007. He had conducted trainings and seminars on Independent Living and DET. He is currently working towards establishing an Independent Living Centre in Kuala Lumpur.