In the morning we had input from expert Simona Giarratano from European Disability Forum speaking about UN CRPD, the EU Disability Strategy and she told us about the basic tools we can you use for lobbying, advocacy and raising awareness.
When doing this, is it very important to know for about Whom the message is, Why you have this message, What the message means and How you want to deliver it.

Presentation was followed by group work session to find a solution for real-life  problems in application of one article from the Human Rights convention. My group had chosen for Education (article 2 of the CRPD). One other group had chosen education too, another two groups were working on employment. In these areas there are problems that hard of hearing people needs to deal with every day, these two very important things make or destroy one’s life.

Advocacy group proudly presents their poster

During lunch break we searched for shop with some personal products. We knew we needed to walk for a minimum of 20 minutes to find it, so we ate or lunch very fast so we have had more than a hour to do what we were needed to. Unfortunately in France shops are closing during lunch time … We found after long research a pharmacy that could help, but on that moment we knew: we would be late.

Back in the youth centre we went on with talking about mass communication for awareness raising. I didn’t like this subject, because it felt like nothing new for me. This part of day wasn’t that interesting because many things I already knew about, but on the upside I had a lot of examples to share and help the others.

On the wall next to Sabine - plenty of success stories

We ate by the international coffee break very nice and sweet Turkish food. Then we had been deeper into the subject: we needed to present our success stories in 60 second in a presentations. The most wonderful success story was of Angkie Yudistia , she wrote a book about her life as “the deaf girl without limits”. Everyone received its freshly printed translation in English! That is something absolutely special and I admire what she just done with her life, it’s impressed me a lot. I was the only one who refuse to present my success stories, because I wasn’t confident enough to stand in the front of the group and feeling all the pair eyes following me.

After end of the workshops at 6 pm we had a feedback group: everyone in mine was quite positive about the day, the organization and about indispensable work of the team members.

After dinner we came together: this night is all about your organization and country. So we learned some interesting facts about all these different countries and people.

One of the "bees" searching for most interesting facts from different countries

Did you know that there is a tradition in Turkey that when a stranger is knocking on the door, that they have to let this person be in their house for three days? Or that men throw cold water on their women in the Easter in Slovakia because they believe it will keep them healthy and beautiful?! I did not know about that either, but now I will hardly ever forget it.

By Sara Kwekkeboom. Photos by Paulina Lewandowska.

Working in groups on needs of HoH

Personally, I got learned lots of things about needs of
hard of hearing people, thanks to other participants. Everyone is
sharing their experiences, it is good to see that we have lots of
common needs.

Every group prepared sketch on their topic

In international coffee breaks, we had a chance to taste Slovakian,
Italian and Dutch foods. It was funny to watch Juraj when he tried to
cut very hard cheese with a small knife.

Participants also had a chance to learn more things about social and
human rights, non-formal education. All participants could talk with
various partners face-to-face in a carousel about social rights. It
was also good for to know each other, because we had to talk 6
different partners during 8 minutes.

Discussion in carousel

By Alper Coskun. Photos made by Andrea Pietrini.

The next presentation was given by the vice-president of IFHOHYP and it was about the structure and the goals of the organization. After that the aim, objectives and program of the study session was introduced to the participants.

The participants

On the first international coffee break we ate some traditional food from Poland and Indonesia. After that we were asked to wright down our expectations, fears and own contribution of the study session. Most participants expected to meet new people and building a network of HoH. They expect their main contribution will be to share experience and ideas. The participant’s fears are mostly about “not be able to understand and/or follow the discussions”. The lunch was a time and place where we continued to know each other but this time in an informal way. The next game was called “PONCHO speed dating” – each member was asked to make a poncho from a paper and write down his/her name, country, organization, profession, hobbies, motto of life, etc.

Poncho dating

After the “Russian” coffee break we had intercultural learning – a game was a simulation of a meeting of two cultures. The outcomes of the first day of IFHOHYP Study Session were that we have learned more about each other (in an amuse and fun way) and learned to work effectively in a group, despite the fact that English is not our first language and despite of cultural differences.

Groupbuilding - Making the lion statue together

By Mina Bukurova and Daphna Dobrenko, photos by Andrea Pietrini

The participants

During the welcome evening, a short description of the Study Sessions took place first, followed by brief presentations of Team Leaders.

The team - clockwise: Sabine, Juliane, Laura, Cristina, Carlos

With the help of food and beverages offered by the EYC, the participants began to know each other, getting confident with themselves and Leaders. Various activities were arranged during the evening, such as self-presentations of participants and funny games, in order to facilitate interactions between participants, and participants and the team.

Icebreaker game

Finally, the evening ended about midnight, with the wish to be ready for the start of the Study Session in the morning.

Text+photos by Andrea Pietrini

What else can be done to improve this situation? Francesca should explain her problem to the other girls, you say? Try to see it from her point of view: would you really have the energy to explain your hearing to everyone you meet? Certainly not, so hard of hearing people can, unfortunately, start to pretend they understand. And in many situations explaining anything is just not readily possible, as seen in next example:

Hopeless situation could be alleviated by by both technical and human means.

Technical support

Francesca would benefit immensely from FM system (assistive listening device), sign laguage interpreter (only in case if she understands sign alnguage), or, the best possibility, text to speech service.

Human support

The rejection of Francesca’s needs by classmates may seem quite extreme, but such things happen in everyday life. Also, while we don’t see the teacher, it is likely he is standing by face away from students, making lipreading impossible. Or it can be prevented by poor lighting, or light shining from behind speaker. Don’t let me even start about surrounding noise level.  All these things can usually be solved without big time or financial issues. One just has to consult hearing disabled person on his/her needs in advance.

As you can see in last video, even if only one thing is improved, the  benefit is considerable.

In practice, we should strive to combine as many approaches to help disabled people, as is possible.  Peer support / cooperation plays a good role in study, a little cooperation/support means a lot for your classmates – or in any area of your life.

Was this article helpful? Discussion is welcome!

Films by Andrea Pietrini. Text by Juraj Variny and Andrea Pietrini.

In this extended deadline we won’t be able to accept participants needing visa to enter France. We have already received many applications of people needing visa and a selection must be made.

Participants not needing visa and from Europe and encouraged to take this last chance to join the upcoming and exciting study session!

You can find the call for participants and the application form in IFHOHYP website:

www.ifhohyp.org

Last weekend (16-17 September) the team members of the study session, along with our educational trainer, had a meeting in the European Youth Center at Budapest to prepare the activity. There we had a fruitful brainstorming session, turning up what we want to achieve in the study session.

Our aim is to provide young hard of hearing people with awareness raising, campaigning and lobbying competences in order to reach policy makers and have access to social rights in their respective countries.

To accomplish so, the study session will provide space to participants to express themselves. This way we’ll be able to share a lot of ideas and learn from them: the situation of HoH young people in different countries. best practices in awareness raising regarding the rights and needs of HoH people, social rights that are at stake for HoH people, networking methods to work together on action plans, strategies and tools for awareness raising, etc.

We’ll also have input from two experts. The first expert will introduce the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020. The goal will be to learn how to use these tools in benefit of hard of hearing people. The second expert will introduce us in the concepts of campaigning and lobbying and strategies related to them that could be useful to reach policy makers and stakeholders.

With all the said above we want to empower participants to speak up for the needs and rights of HoH young people towards the general public and policy makers.

We are still accepting applications to join this study session. If you are interested, please read the call for participants, fill the application form and send it before October 1st. You can find the call and the form in the IFHOHYP website: www.ifhohyp.org

Looking forward to meeting you at Strasbourg.

This blog should be place for sharing ideas, articles, videos and discussing them. All your contributions related to hearing loss are welcome – either ask here in comments, or e-mail to ifhohyp-communication@googlegroups.com .

On behalf of IFHOHYP Communication committee,
Juraj Variny
IFHOHYP Webmaster

visited famous Zermatt and saw Matterhorn,

had many sport activities

and fun at evenings.

We tasted swiss wine and cheese,

and had another day in mountains, starting from sunrise.

In the end, it was so hard to say goodbye… whole evening dedicated to remembering things we did together.