Update on DDW's Work in Costa Rica

Recently I had the privilege of talking with David Justice (DJ), co-founder of Discovering Deaf Worlds (DDW) . Long-time readers of my blog may recall I took a trip to Costa Rica with DDW in 2011. DJ brought me up-to-date on what's new with DDW and Costa Rica. With his permission, I can share with you an excerpt of our online chat conversation reformatted as an interview.

Sarah: Did you ever imagine DDW would grow into what it is today when you and Christy started the organization in 2007?

DJ: When Christy and I first took that trip our goal was 'to make an entertaining video of stories in 10 different sign languages from 10 different countries' and now here we are working with governments, post-secondary institutions, and national associations of the deaf on organizational development and long term sustainability projects. [It's] all very exciting! Our long term goal as we expand is to incorporate international teams to provide capacity building in sign language-- so not just DDW people from USA, but a combo of people from USA and Philippines will begin this "train the trainer" organizational development cycle in the next country.

[I told DJ about my recent Train the Trainer experience with the Library of Congress.]

Sarah: The Train the Trainer program was exciting because I got exposure to experts in this field which I knew nothing about. And now with having to do the training myself, I have to learn the subject and be very engaged with it, to be able to do it.

DJ: That's great. It's something we try to do with our work in international development -- involve those we are working with in every step of the process. Even our discussions/trainings are always "co-facilitated" by one 1 DDW person and 1 person from PFD, or ANASCOR, or whichever organization we are working with. You definitely see a quicker sense of empowerment and self confidence that way.

Sarah: Speaking of ANASCOR (Asociación Nacional de Sordos de Costa Rica), what's new?

DJ: They are in the process of establishing another Deaf advocacy organization in Costa Rica called "Siglo 21" or "The 21st Century". They will be independent of ANASCOR but will work very closely together with ANASCOR. The goal of Siglo 21 is to focus on enforcing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD). Are you familiar with that law?

Sarah: No, I'm not.

DJ: CRPD is an international disability law that is very similar to the ADA we have here in the USA. The Costa Rican government passed this law 5 years ago and every two years, they are required to submit a report to the UN explaining how they are amending or developing policies that are accommodating for people with disabilities. In their first two reports, ANASCOR was not mentioned at all, and LESCO [Costa Rican sign language] was only mentioned once, so there is a "disconnect" between the government (who controls policy for education/employment/etc) and the Deaf community. That is the gap that Siglo 21 is going to focus on closing up. They plan to conduct some concrete research on the needs of the Deaf community to have evidence behind their complaints, then offer constructive advice to the government on how to improve language access, deaf education, job training, etc. It's a big project, and will take several years-- but they are moving along. Our [DDW's] role has been to provide "process consultation" on the development of Siglo 21 as an organization. For example, we worked with them on refining their mission, vision, values statements; conducted a SWOT analysis, established a timeline with committees to achieve their goals etc.

Sarah: That is a big project, I am glad DDW is supporting them.

DJ: I went to Costa Rica last summer with Dr. Scot Atkins who works with DDW (and as a professor at NTID) and we made some great progress together. We will likely return again this winter at some point and will likely visit Costa Rica once a year or every two years. Perhaps if we expand, we can run a similar exchange program like we have [recently] done with the Philippines.

Sarah: Thanks for the updates, DJ. Everything sounds great.

DJ: Pura Vida!

To learn more about Discovering Deaf Worlds, please visit their website www.discoveringdeafworlds.org.

My Hearing Loss Support Group Reaches Out

Indian food at Khyber Pass Restaurant, Oak Park

Last Saturday, my hearing loss support group met for lunch at an Indian restaurant. It was the first time several of us, including me, had tried this cuisine. The restaurant offered a generous buffet with many dishes to choose among including beef, chicken, lamb, and many vegetarian options.

Buffet table at Khyber Pass Restaurant, Oak Park

My friend Ann who enjoys cooking Indian food.

My friend Ann came with me. She knows how to cook Indian food and she explained to us what each dish was. At the table we were served nan, which is an Indian flat bread. At the buffet table, we had three choices of dips. I tried two of them, a sweet and sour dip and a yogurt dip. Together with the nan, they helped cool off the spicier dishes. But none of them were very hot, thank goodness. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the food.

The restaurant was quiet and we had our own long table (actually 3 tables pushed together) and good lighting. Conversation and signing flowed freely among us. After we had all finished eating, we posed for this group photo taken by one of our members.

ALDA Chicago members who came out for Indian food.

Then we went over to Oak Park Public Library to view the documentary film Discovering Shuktara: Star of Happiness. This social event was my idea because I wanted to introduce our group to the wonderful work being done internationally by Discovering Deaf Worlds, the organization I traveled to Costa Rica with last year.

The film tells the true story of Shuktara, a group home for developmentally disabled and deaf children who have been abandoned by their families and overlooked by other charitable organizations. Shuktara was started in 1999 by David Earp. You can read more about him and how he came to found Shuktara here. Discovering Deaf Worlds made this captioned film and has established a lifetime commitment to the support of this organization.

After watching the film, our group took up a free will offering for Discovering Deaf Worlds to give to Shuktara. I was so proud that my friends wanted to join me in giving. Together we raised $144.
This event was important to me because I hoped the group could identify with what David Earp has done - creating a new, loving family for young people in need. I know my ALDA Chicago support group has become a new family for me. I've found acceptance, support, and friendship among others who like me have difficulty communicating with the rest of the world. It feels like family when I'm with them. I'm glad to know they were touched by the film the same way I am every time I see it. If you would like to view the film, you can watch it here on DDW's website.

DDW's Journey to Cambodia and Thailand

Travelers with Discovering Deaf Worlds recently returned from a trip to Cambodia and Thailand. Here's a report on their adventure courtesy of DDW's Executive Director, Davin Searls:

We had a wonderful group of eight travelers who bonded from day one! Even though we had the full spectrum of signing Deaf people to interpreters to a hearing person who knew no sign language at all, the participants made sure that everyone was included. In fact, by the end of the trip, our one non-signer was having conversations in not only ASL, but Cambodian Sign Language as well!

Our group especially enjoyed their time with the local Deaf community and our visits to DDW partner organizations. We watched a fantastic dance performance by Deaf vocational students at Epic Arts, and even joined the students in a creative dance workshop! For DJ and I, it was an inspiration to see such incredible growth in the Cambodian Deaf community. Four or five years ago, there were very few visible Deaf leaders - and after this visit, we were in awe about the strength of independence behind the local Deaf community to coordinate our visit, lead workshops with our group of mixed hearing and Deaf people, and formally teach us a crash course in Cambodia Sign Language!

We also squeezed in some exciting cultural ventures like Muay Thai (kickboxing), a visit to the Temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia and the Grand Palace in Thailand, and taste-testing exotic street food like crickets - which surprisingly, weren't half bad!

Without a doubt, this was a memorable Journey for everyone- we have to thank our local cultural representatives for making us all feel at home!

Thanks, Davin for sharing your thoughts on the trip! In the video below, you will see one of the journey participants share her experiences in Cambodia.

To see the group's itinerary in Cambodia and Thailand click here. To learn more about travel opportunities with Discovering Deaf Worlds, click here.

Discovering Deaf Worlds

I still have a follow up post from my trip that needs to be written about ANASCOR, the national deaf organization of Costa Rica. In the meantime, I hope you will take a few moments to watch this new video that explains the mission of Discovering Deaf Worlds. It's very well done and makes me proud to have an association with this organization. Perhaps you'll consider getting involved too.

Telling the Story of My Sign Name

I recently posted about receiving my sign name from a class of students at a deaf school in Costa Rica. At lunch that day, I was asked by Discovering Deaf Worlds to tell my story on video. I did so using as many signs as I could. By the end of this narrative, my words had run ahead of my signing ability and I had made several signing errors. But I hope you can ignore that and enjoy the story anyways. My delight in receiving a sign name shines through despite the mistakes.

Visiting a Deaf School in Costa Rica with DDW

Our first day in Costa Rica, the Discovering Deaf Worlds group visited a school for the deaf in San Jose. As you can see from the sign above, the deaf school is part of a special education center which also provides education for the blind and the mentally retarded. Students who are deaf-blind and students with multiple challenges are educated here as well. If you are interested, you can read more about Centro Nacional de Educacion Especial here and more about its founder, Fernando Centeno Güell here (Google can translate these pages from Spanish for you.)

Welcome sign near the front door of the school

Upon entering the school and being warmly greeted by the principal, we were invited to get back into our tour bus and drive to a theater so we could attend a performance with the school's students. Flexible people that we were, our group had no problem adjusting our plans to experience this unique opportunity.

Once we arrived and took our seats, a translator from Costa Rica sat next to me and explained that there would be no dialog for this play. Instead the performance featured animals of Costa Rica including a frog, a dragonfly, a butterfly, and a snake among others. The animals were painted with day glo colors and the actors holding them and manipulating them were entirely dressed in black. With a black backdrop the actors disappeared and all we could see were the animals writhing and jumping about on the stage. A soundtrack of music and sounds of the rain forest accompanied the action. The volume was set to LOUD. I enjoyed feeling the vibrations of the music and sounds. After the play was over, the actors came out with the animals and showed them to the children and us. The kids thoroughly enjoyed the performance.

Back at the school, we were led on a tour of the classrooms so we could meet the students and learn about their studies. The school educates children from preschool age to 6th grade. One of the ladies in our group hails from Australia. She had brought a bag of tiny koala and kangaroo stuffed animals for the smaller kids at the school. It was really moving for me to see her interact with the kids, inviting them to choose just one from the bag, and then teaching them the Auslan signs for koala and kangaroo. She was a big hit with the children and brought smiles to their faces with her gifts.

In this photo you can see the school's director on the left and a local sign language interpreter on the right. The fish was one of the art projects for the day. A balloon was blown up and then strips of paper were laid over top with paste and then decorated. We were also shown art projects made from recycled materials such as pop can tabs.

We spent the most time with the 6th graders at the school. One by one our group introduced ourselves by finger spelling our names, sharing our sign names, and telling them where we live. When it was my turn, the students were concerned to learn that I didn't have a sign name and decided to remedy the situation.

For those of you who don't know, in deaf culture a sign name is given to you by members of the deaf community. It is not something you choose for yourself. It usually is something simple that represents an aspect of yourself. Using a sign name is more convenient than continually finger spelling a name.

That day I happened to be wearing a big floppy sun hat. One of the students suggested hat for my sign name but was overruled by the others because I don't wear this hat everyday. An animated discussion in sign followed. Then a student asked if I wear my glasses everyday. When I replied yes, the students decided glasses would be my sign name. [Glasses is signed by making a letter g sign at a 90° angle next to one's right eye. Or to describe it another way, by holding the right forefinger and thumb up to the right eye so they could touch the bottom and top of a pair of glasses.]

I was so touched to receive my sign name this way and in this place. Glasses is a perfect name for a librarian who wears bifocals, wouldn't you agree?

At the end of our visit, we had lunch in the school cafeteria. We were served rice with chicken and vegetables, salad, and cantaloupe. I was impressed by the healthy fresh food. I wished my son were fed this way at his school.

Before leaving we gave the director a donation that was raised through the price of our trip. She accepted the money graciously and told us the door to the school would always be open to us.

"I can be all that I want to be" sign on the playground

For My Birthday

This year for my birthday I gave myself a fantastic present. I took a trip to Costa Rica with Discovering Deaf Worlds from February 24 - March 5.

This was an opportunity for me to push myself way out of my comfort zone. I traveled with a group of people I had never met before, most of whom were deaf and communicated solely by sign language. During the trip, I hiked in the rain forest, zip lined down a mountain, and climbed to a waterfall. I was tested mentally, physically, and socially.

A fellow traveler asked what drew me to taking this trip with Discovering Deaf Worlds. My answer was that since receiving my diagnosis of hearing loss, I have had the benefit of hearing aids, assistive listening devices, CART captioning, and other technologies. I have had the opportunity to learn ASL and watch interpreters at several events. Truly, I feel blessed to live in this country where help is available. I wanted to travel to a less fortunate place and see if I could be of any assistance or encouragement to the people there.

In the days to come I will write several posts describing the journey and what I learned in Costa Rica. But for now, I'd like to wrap up with this anecdote. At the farewell dinner the last night of our trip, I was asked what I would take away from this experience. I replied two things came to mind. The first was that I was grateful for all that I could hear. At home my focus has often been on what I miss or don't hear correctly. But in Costa Rica, I was amazed by all that I was able to hear. I could understand bits of Spanish. I could hear environmental sounds that my fellow travelers couldn't.

The second takeaway from the trip for me was that I need to open my heart to people more. At home I tend to isolate myself and avoid difficult communication situations. In Costa Rica, I learned the joy of interacting and that it's okay to say that I haven't understood what was expressed. One of my proudest moments on the trip was when I had breakfast with a deaf man from Costa Rica who signed LESCO sign language and a deaf woman from Australia who signed AUSLAN sign language. Despite our differences, we were able to have a real conversation. That morning I could have easily stuck to English speakers or ASL signers but I would have missed my chance to get to know two amazing people better.

In the year to come I hope I can continue to move out of my comfort zone and push forward. As they say in Costa Rica, Pura Vida.

Travel Opportunities with Discovering Deaf Worlds

Would you like to join Discovering Deaf Worlds on an international adventure that will connect you with deaf people and signers around the world? Well, here is your chance to take the trip of a lifetime to Costa Rica or Thailand and Cambodia.

DDW has partnered with socially conscious travel company GoPhilanthropic to offer innovative travel opportunities that combine culture, adventure, accessibility, and a way to contribute to international deaf communities.

As part of the DDW: Journeys program, you can zip-line through the treetop canopy of a Costa Rican jungle, visit a colorful floating boat market amidst the city canals of Bangkok Thailand, and explore the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. At the same time, you will meet with deaf leaders along the way, learn about the issues they face, and participate in local efforts working towards solutions.

All trips will be fully accessible to deaf and hearing travelers with guides fluent in English, American Sign Language, and the local sign language of each country (Thai, Khmer/Cambodian, and LESCO-Costa Rican Sign Language).

Additional information including the trip itineraries are available at the GoPhilanthropic website. This article came almost entirely from the DDW blog.

Personally, I would love to take the Costa Rica trip. Is anyone else interested?

Is Sign Language an International Language?

Photo taken by DDW Team in New Zealand and shared on flickr.

When I was telling my friends and family about Discovering Deaf Worlds, someone asked me if sign language is an international language. She meant, "Is it the same all around the world?" The answer is no. Sign language is unique to cultures and varies from country to country. When I took an ASL sign language, I was shown that there are regional variations as well. Deaf families may even use home signs that have special meaning to the family members.

Photo taken by DDW Team in Japan and shared on flickr.

Christy Smith and Dave Justice of Discovering Deaf Worlds experienced this firsthand when they traveled through Asia in 2007-2008. In their newsletters to supporters back home, they published examples of the fingerspelled alphabets for each country they visited. Their May 2008 newsletter includes the following excerpt:

....the first question our new hearing friends almost always ask is, “So sign language is universal, right? That must be cool to know a universal language!” But of course, sign language is not universal. The roots of sign language, just like any verbal language, are influenced by culture and geography. For example, the sign for “Thank you” in Japan is adopted from the karate-chop-like gesture a sumo wrestler makes after winning his prize money, whereas in China, “Thank you” is signed as a fist with a bending thumb to represent the subtle head nod Chinese people use to acknowledge thanks in passing.

Discovering Deaf Worlds holds this value to be central to its mission: "Local sign languages reflect the cultures in which they are rooted and must be preserved. "(October 2009 newsletter). While traveling through developing countries in Asia, Christy and Dave learned that Cambodia had no sign language before 1997 and the language is still in development today. In addition, Thai Sign Language was not recognized by the government as the official language of the deaf in Thailand until 1999. DDW is committed to helping the educational efforts of those teaching local sign languages. You can learn more by visiting their website at http://www.discoveringdeafworlds.org/.

In my next post, I will write about an exciting new venture that DDW has launched.

Discovering Deaf Worlds

Davin Searles, Christy Smith, and Dave Justice

Have you heard about Discovering Deaf Worlds?

This organization is the brainchild of Dave Justice (an ASL interpreter) and Christy Smith (a deaf contestant on Survivor). To get DDW started in 2007, the pair raised funds to spend a year traveling New Zealand, Australia, Japan, China, Thailand, Nepal, India, and Cambodia in search of deaf support groups in these countries. You can read the story of their adventures and the wonderful people they met along the way in their archived newsletters.

Three years later, Discovering Deaf Worlds is an official 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to empowering deaf and hard of hearing people in developing countries. Davin Searles has joined Dave and Christy as Executive Director and 9 board members have been selected.

DDW's first successful project was creating a film titled Discovering: Shuktara. This documentary tells the story of 18 boys and girls in Kolkata, India who were given a new chance at life after being abandoned by their families or escaping abusive homes. While many non-governmental organizations in India often overlook homeless children who are deaf, Shuktara embraces them. You can view a trailer of the film here.

The STAR (Shuktara Teachers and Role Models) Initiative has now been launched to provide training and educational materials for deaf Indian tutors to work with the children of the Shuktara homes on language development and vocational skills. The long-term goal is for the children to attain the skills, knowledge, and confidence necessary to run the homes independently. You can read more about it in their December 2009 newsletter.

In my next post, I will share more with you about Discovering Deaf Worlds.