Deaf – Page 22 – Welcome to Cambodia, and…..

Christmas Culture at DDP

This Friday was a day when regular classes were canceled and the students were able to participate in activities and games to be part of the Christmas spirit that spreads around Cambodia even though very few people here could explain Christmas as a religious celebration. Click here to see some of the morning activities.

A birthday

Today was Soknym’s first birthday as a member of the DDP staff and the rest of the staff provided a cake for celebrating together with him this afternoon.

Practice for Christmas Greeting

On their break this morning, students in DDP’s Education Project made a quick little video to offer Christmas greetings on the Maryknoll Lay Missioners website later this month. They just signed “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year” in Cambodian Sign Language.

Sunday afternoon….

For many months our Deaf Community Center could not have any activities because of the Covid regulations. Now Cambodia is officially “open” and groups are allowed to gather again as long as they wear masks, use sanitizer, and maintain distances. The past two weeks DCC has started organizing games and activities on the weekend, and there has been a good response from deaf people who felt very isolated in their homes.

This afternoon at the Deaf Development Programme office grounds, one group–mostly DDP staff–played volleyball while another group, mostly students, chopped up ginger for meals this week. Yesterday teams of deaf people cleared brush from around our fish pond so a new fence can be installed, and this morning the DCC staffed taught everyone how to make a traditional Khmer dessert.

For most of the deaf people who came by this afternoon, it was just a quiet time to be with friends and to chat and rest up from a busy week.

IDPD

Giving Tuesday, for DDP

I went to check what the tech wizards at Maryknoll had done with the video I sent them about DDP—and it didn’t come out the way they said it would! The proposal was for me to send a video that they would edit into three sections for the Saturday, Sunday, and Monday before tomorrow’s Giving Tuesday.

Instead it looks like they used the whole enchilada, all 26 minutes of video except for some transitions and introductions I had included.

You can take a look at: www.maryknollsociety.org/givingtuesday/

Something in Firefox or in the Maryknoll webpage won’t allow me to put a clickable link here so you will have to click on the address above and then copy-and-paste it into your browser address line. Sorry about that!

Thanks for any help you can give!

Giving Tuesday, for DDP

I’m not that familiar with Giving Tuesday (that started after I left the United States) but two weeks ago the Maryknoll priests group contacted me to say they wanted to feature the Maryknoll Deaf Development Programme here in Cambodia in their Giving Tuesday appeal. I made some videos for them and they were supposed to start posting them over this past weekend.

Here is the link: https://maryknollsociety.org/givingtuesday/

There was a still photo there when I checked on the weekend but I encourage you both to take a look at the videos (we were trying to explain more about deafness) and to make a donation. We are in a bad situation because of reduced donations to our funders because of Covid-19.

Annual Staff Meeting – 7

There were a lot of interesting things to see in Mondulkiri. I was surprised at the different types of vegetation. Click here to view some of the things we saw.

Annual Staff Meeting – 6

One of the greatest benefits of a large staff meeting is just the presence and interaction of all the staff with each other, meeting each other and working together in ways different from the office routines. Click here to see some of the ways the staff was together.

Annual Staff Meeting – 5

The afternoon of our final full day in Mondulkiri was spent exploring some beautiful natural settings there in the hills of Cambodia. Click here to see the places we visited.