2010 off to a great start!
Our first general meeting of 2010 was a great success. The evening provided an opportunity for all our members to re-acclimatize and get back into the swing of things after an extended break over the festive season.
We were fortunate enough to receive a presentation by Patrick Holkins who is the founder of Hear. Now. South Africa (HNSA) and Hearing Loss Nation (HLN), a US based online community for individuals with hearing loss between the ages 18 and 35.
Patrick lost his hearing at the age of four as a result of a bout with meningitis and started wearing hearing aids by the age of 12. He is a Harvard graduate in political science and is also an avid rugby player, playing Ivy League rugby in the United States. He is in South Africa working with a rural community in the Eastern Cape with the aim of establishing a sustainable hearing loss screening and treatment With the help of the Audiology staff at Nelson Mandela hospital in Umtata, he hopes to ensure that all hearing impaired children in the region receive timely and effective hearing health care. His audiovisual presentation was excellent and inspiring. His passion and commitment to uplifting the hard of hearing community serves as an inspiration to us all. Please check his website out at www.hearnowsa.com
Jenny Perold was up next, presenting topics that we are to discuss for future general meetings. Everyone agreed on a number of topics, this included topics such as coping with hearing loss at work and at University and how to deal with hearing loss in unfamiliar environments. Some great suggestions were made and it seems that hear2day will be hosting a few more role playing sessions, as well as some additional informal general meetings this year.
We are also glad to announce that hear2day is now a registered Non Profit Organisation (NPO) with a fully functional and approved constitution. This is thanks to the unwavering persistence and efforts of our Treasurer, Fred Benning.
Thanks to Gail Jacklin for providing the snacks and refreshments, they were delicious as always.
We had our very own paparazzi at the meeting, with Andrew Nel and Paul Jacklin snapping up pictures as the meeting progressed. The pictures will be posted online shortly!
The evening was closed by our chairperson Tony Abrahamson, thanking all the members who attended. Special thanks were made to Jenny and Patrick for their wonderful presentations and for those who contributed in ensuring our first hear2day general meeting of 2010 was such a great success.
Hi Yunus,
Thanks for a great effort in putting this update on line. Patrick thanks for your input, it was highly apprecited, tahnsk too to Jenny forleading us so enthusiastically.
I also have a ew photos which I will downsize and send to you on e-mail for inclusion sometime soon. Best regards See you at Varsity sometime. will SMS you if you can provide me with your mobile phone no
Hi to all for the first time!
I’m André van Deventer living on the more civilised side of the mountains here in Worcester! I work at the National Institute for the Deaf at the Deafnet Center of Knowledge. One of my main responsibilities is working in the Public Education and Awarness programme where I am responsible for research and presentations regarding hard of hearing and deafblind persons.
Thanx for Diane for introducing me to this website and this community.
It seems as if you folks are doing quite a lot!
Just something about myself: I was born blind and my parents moved down with me when I was 4 years old so that I could attend the then School for the Blind here in Worcester. At the age of 16, while I was doing mobility and orientation training, it was discovered that I had a yearing loss. I received my first hearing aid at 17 years old.
While losing your hearing is bad for a sighted person, losing your hearing if you are completely blind is a catastrophic. Remember that blind persons depend on their hearing for many things from mobility and orientation to knowing where people are when they speak to you. There was no real assistance available for me at school so I had to find my own coping strategies. However, I am glad to say that I did manage to complete my matric with good marks. At that time it would have been very difficult for me to go to university – this was during the early eighties – so I went to work at a braille production service as braille proofreader. I did this for 17 years until I went to work as the National Director of Deafblind South Africa, a disabled people’s organisation for deafblind persons in SA. After the office had to close due to financial reasons, aI managed to secure a position at the NID here in Worcester.
One of the main differences I think between a visually impaired person and a sighted person losing their hearing is the fact that lipreading is not an option. You have to rely on the little bit of hearing you have left and to utalise this to the best of your ability. I am very lucky that I could do this very well. Although English is not my first language, I completed matric with both English and Afrikaans as first languages and in higher grade.
During my time at Deafblind South Africa and even before I started working as National Director, I was priveleged to travel widely both nationally and internationally. Travelling for a deafblind person is not the easiest thing to put it mildly. But this specific time has greatly enriched my life. I am experienced in advocacy work both on a national and international level, having served on a panel of advisors to the previous United Nations Rapporteur on Disabilities. This panel consisted of various persons from international organisations of Disabled Persons and was set up to advise the Special Rapporteur. As a member of the International Disability Alliance, I was also involved in negotiations regarding the UN Conventsion on the rights of disabled persons.
I now wear a cochlear implant in one ear and a phonak naida hearing in the other. I have a keen interest in assistive devices and you will always find me with some or other weird gadget.
André
Dear Andre,
A hearty welcome to Hear2day’s website. It is always so encouraging to note that our message is getting through to an increasing number of folks out there. We are especially excited to read how you have so very succesfully developed your own special coping strategies under very difficult circiumstances You are indeed a great inspiration to us who only having a hearing impairment. We sincerely hope that you have benefitted from your CI as I have had over the past 6 months! For your information we have made contact and work closely with Fanie du Toit of NCPPDSA, withwhom we held a workshop at the start of the year which will lead to a greater ‘connectivelty’ of H2d and the greater formal disabled society out there. There is much to look forward to as we spread the word far and wide on our desire to help others less fortunate than ourselves who have received some form of assistance by way of hearing aids or CI’s. Please keep in touch, we are sure to visit Worcester in the future and we will definitely look out for you. Fondest regards Fred Benning Hon Treasurer for and on behalf of Hear2day SA
Fred
Thanx a lot for the welcome and my sincere appologies for taking such a long time to respond. Things have been a bit busy here!
I have been working with Fanie since the late 90s. In fact, the Public Education and Awareness programme we present is one he compiled. There is a Memorandum of Understanding between the NID and NCPPDSA regarding presenting this programme. We have been presenting at various businesses, old age homes, and even at correctional services and municipalities during this year.
One of our challenges is that we present together with folks who come from a Deaf culture background. It is important for us that all aspects of hearing loss are given the same preference. Not the easiest of things to do. We are kind of stuck between the NID, which works mainly with culturally Deaf persons, and NCPPDSA, who work mainly with hard of hearing persons and persons who became deaf later in life. Finding a common ground here sometimes needs som diplomacy to put it mildly!!
Hi here Andre, So good to read your latest response. We have the honour of Fanie presenting a talk to our Table View Chapter of Hear2day on Friday 25th June, about his work. Our Exco also is actively trying to formalise our working relationship with Fanie and the NCPPDSA organisation. This is an effort for Hear2d to become better known, our aims and objectives understood by as wide a hearing impaired community, including the culturally deaf, by way of the printed word. An example of this is our newly published and released brochure, which we hope shortly to publish on our website. Although we are in the infancy of our development, we have some understanding of the communication difficulties existing b etween the two groups of hearing impaired persons. We have much to learn on how to deal with these difficulties and look to yourself and Fanie advices as to how best to go about this. Many thanks and lets keep the communication going. Very best wishes. Fred Benning pp Hear2day Exco
Hi Fred!
Must really make a point of checking into the website on a more regular basis. Once again my apologies for the long delay in responding.
I really think my colleague Tim Stones and I must make some kind of plan to join you folks for your next get-together. We need to establish some kind of more permanent link with all of you across the mountain!
The differences between the two main communities of persons with hearing loss is one that I have had to deal with during the past more than ten years. The problem is most probably that there are hotheads on both sides of this controversial debate. If you want to debate any issue you must first try to understand why people may hve differing viewpoints from yours. Only then I believe can you sit down and find common ground. And in many cases this has not happened in the community with hearing loss.
I believe that most folks actually want to find some way of working together. But we tend to fear things/people/situations we do not know and react out of this fear.