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Hi, and welcome to the first edition of the DBASA’s newsletter for the year.
Firstly I would like to introduce and welcome our new committee. There has been quite a change in our committee and it is great to see some fresh faces on board, particularly the support of several more person’s with deafblindness and a parent representative. I would like to thank all the committee members for their ongoing support and commitment. Below you will find the profiles of the office bearers. In the next newsletter we will include the profiles of the rest of the committee. I also thank all the committee members from the last few years and wish them all the best.
The committee has voted to undertake the launch of the 2003 National DeafBlind Awareness Week. The invitation for the launch came from the Australian DeafBlind Council. A sub committee has been formed to plan this launch and events for the week. The DeafBlind Awareness week is traditionally held in June, during the week of Helen Keller’s Birthday. We would welcome any suggestions for events or activities for the week. The subcommittee will keep us informed of any major developments.
Also during the year we hope to undertake some fundraising in various forms. This is to supplement our very small and rapidly depleting funds. If anybody has any suggestions for fundraising activities please contact us.
We will continue to provide public meetings with speakers on various issues. We will also continue to publish our newsletter. We love receiving articles and excerpts for our newsletter!
I will take a brief moment to apologise for the noticeable lack of a Christmas Newsletter. Unfortunately, time constraints by many parties restricted the printing of the newsletter and it was decided to wait until the new year.
I look forward to serving the Association during 2003 and hope that you will all become involved in our DeafBlind Awareness Week.
I am a twenty six year old with a hearing impairment. I am married to Craig Gordon, who is another committee member. Together we have a son, Edward, who is nineteen months. Edward has a dual sensory impairment. Craig has two daughters to a previous marriage, who are also deafblind and are described in both Craig’s and Marilyn Gordon’s profile.
In my life, I have worked as a youth worker, kitchen hand, cleaner, pizza driver & maker, child care worker and now work in special education as a school services officer (teacher’s aide). I have also volunteered on community radio and in community television. Currently, I’m also studying part time.
I am looking forward to serving the Association in my position as Chairperson and I am honoured to have been elected.
Hi all, my name is Phil Vandepeer, and I have only just joined the DeafBlind Association, and am a new committee member.
I was born in Mount Gambier, which is south east of South Australia, I lived on a farm, and was born with partial sight, in fact I was born with cataracts as a result of my mother having rubella, I also have a minor hearing problem, which necessitates me wearing 2 hearing aids. I attended Townsend House School for Deaf and Blind Children as it was known back then. 1962, where I spent 9 and a half years as a full time border. I then left school and went to live and work in Mount Gambier at a sheltered workshop for 2 and a half years. I then came back to Adelaide and started working at the Royal Society for the Blind, and have been there now for 28 years. I am now in the print alternative section in audio production at the RSB and I have been doing this type of work now for 10 years in that department.
I also worked for Radio for the Print Handicapped since it started, I have been there on voluntary bases, and I do a radio program with Peter Greco, called focal point.
I have been on committees before, such as the Blind Welfare Association Board and the 5RPH committee. I am now on the Blind Citizens Australia (Adelaide Branch) committee, and am convener of the Adelaide Glaucoma support group
Well now that you know a little of who I am, I guess you want to know why I am on the DeafBlind association committee, well, I joined in the hope that I can help out as much as I can with the experience I have from being associated with the blindness agencies, as well being involved with 5RPH, and other Organisations.
What are my hopes? To bring to the attention to the wider community the needs of DeafBlind people in South Australia as best I can.
I was born in the good old year of 64 and I am married to Emma, [other executive committee member], and we have a son Edward. I have two daughters to a previous marriage. My children all have at varying degrees both sight and hearing loss. I have total loss of vision and wear hearing aids due to a severe hearing loss. I am in my second year of being on the committee and my first time being Secretary for the Deafblind Association Committee. I work as an Assistive Technologist for Townsend House. My interests are: country music, computers and tinkering in the shed.
My association with the Deafblind Association came about through Arnold Cielens and Pauline Locke when the Association was re-convened in the early 90s. I was vice-president until the President, Nick Theologlou, moved to Queensland. I was President from about 1996 until 2002, and Treasurer for the past four or five years. I have no involvement in either the provision of services, nor have I any family members who are deafblind, I have been associated for many years with Amnesty International, and also with the United Nations Association of Australia (SA Division), and it was through my interests in human rights in these bodies that I came to appreciate the need for a Deafblind Association, and was willing to be involved. I am a physicist employed as Design Manager for a local company that designs and makes silicon chips for electronic circuits.
Please note that our next news letter will have the profiles of the remaining committee members.
A troupe of blind actors is performing a new play in a pitch-dark theatre in Buenos Aires. Their production, The Desert Island, is the surprise hit of the season in the Argentine capital. The theatre is based in an unlit basement where the audience have to be led to their seats. Sound effects and smells are used to help overcome the fact that nobody can see anything.
"Everyone goes out with a different play in mind," director José Menchaca told Clarin newspaper.
The following article was taken off an email list.
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability-to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip-to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland." "Holland?!" you say. "What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy, I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy." But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine, and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around...and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills...and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy...and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things...about Holland.
THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE HAS BEEN ABRIDGED
A GLOVE that operates on wireless technology to allow communication across the globe between deaf-blind people has been invented by an Australian design engineer.
Swinburne University graduate Peter Hvala came up with the idea after seeing a television documentary on the difficulties of communication between people who are deaf and blind.
The Tacticom Alpha glove stores the information conveyed by deaf-blind people, who use a method of palm communication called deafblind finger spelling to spell out words. It is then transmitted in much the same way as a mobile phone text message.
"In the documentary the woman described how when she lets go of the hand of the person she is communicating with, they could be 1000 miles away," Mr Hvala said.
"It made sense that if they need people to be around all the time to communicate, there was a need for a device to emulate that second person.
"It's a basic data exchange and could be used like we use SMS messages at the moment."
Deaf-blind people use a wide variety of communication techniques. Those with some vision are often able to access email, while others use Braille keypads, but these are complex and many deaf-blind people rely on tactile communication.
THE FOLLOWING EMAIL WAS POSTED ON THE DBAUS EMAIL LIST
Hi, My name is Jeree Milroy (nee:Archer), I am a Deafblind interpreter in Sydney and am involved in organising the Sydney contingent to travel to DbI in 2003. We have 21 people in Sydney all trying to get to the DbI Conference this August! We are trying to find out if any other states are sending a contingent to the DbI Conference in Canada, and if so, perhaps
we can work together to pool resources. For eg: We wonder if any other
states are providing Auslan stage interpreters? If so, we have a number of Deaf relay terps we would like to bring with us.. etc.. If anybody from other states are planning on attending the DbI conference, can you please mail us at DB-NSW@yahoogroups.com and let us know so we can look at the possibility of working together.
Thanks,
Jeree
The following was posted on the DBAUS Email list:
DeafBlindinfo.org is a new online directory of worldwide resources for and about people with combined vision and hearing loss.
St. Paul, MN: Helen Keller is a household name. But do you know about... Laura Bridgman, Danny Delcambre, or your elderly neighbor? ...the modern technology and communication methods deafblind people use in daily life? ...where to find information and assistance if you experience vision and hearing loss?
The general public has little knowledge about what it is like to be deafblind. People who are deafblind themselves have limited access to sights, sounds, and information. A new web site, www.DeafBlindinfo.org, is designed to close the information gap for both populations.
DeafBlindinfo.org showcases a vast collection of deafblindness information and resources in Minnesota and from around the world. Its Consumer Resource Guides aim to inform and empower adults, youth, families, and senior citizens with dual sensory impairment.
Adrienne Haugen is one of several deafblind Minnesotans who provided feedback during the development of DeafBlindinfo.org. Haugen noted, "Everything's all in one place and it's WONDERFUL to see this web site providing so much information that is necessary for every deafblind [person] to know about."
The site's logo features many hands of different sizes and colors reaching toward an open book. Designed to represent making deafblindness-related information accessible, the image also draws attention to the human hand, used by deafblind people to communicate, listen, read, navigate, sense and shape their environment.
DeafBlindinfo.org was developed with a grant from the Minnesota Department of Human Services, Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services Division. The site was launched on December 2, 2002.
The following was taken from the Blind Welfare Association’s Newsletter with their permission:
The ACH Group has just advised that they have received limited Government funding to assist with the installation of Safety Link Personal Monitoring Systems for clients in their homes.
The monitoring system is available free of all installation costs but does require a $33.00 per month monitoring fee. The system enables aged, frail and vision impaired clients to send calls for assistance. Alternatively calls for assistance are automatically sent if the telephone hand set is left off the hook.
For information call David Levinson, ACH Group on 81300 3900.
The DeafBlind Association of SA does not necessarily endorse or support any of the articles that appear within this newsletter. We include articles that may be of interest to the deafblind and wider community. The Association thanks the continuing support of the Strathmont Centre in printing these newsletters at no cost. We support the blind community in providing easy to read, text only newsletters. We also provide this newsletter in alternative formats.
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