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People and activities in the Cambodian deaf world
Caritas Cambodia has organized a training on job coaching for this week, inviting all the Caritas projects that involve people with disabilities. Mr. Kevin Cook, an American now resident in Thailand, is teaching the theory and practice of successfully finding appropriate employment for people with physical and intellectual disabilities.
Isolation is one of the most debilitating characteristics of deafness. Because deaf people often don’t share a common language with society, they can be ignored or shunted out of the mainstream of information and personal contact. That makes the visit of the Korean deaf group significant, just at a superficial level.
But another positive result of the visit is the opening of the eyes and minds of our deaf students to possibilities that are common in developed countries like Korea but are unheard of for deaf people in Cambodia. It is so important for them to gain a new vision and be challenged by a dream of who they can become.
That new vision can be a reassuring one, too. Over the years I have talked with deaf teenagers and have had them relate a fear and a question about when they will die–not at an old age but as they approach young adulthood. Too often deaf children never have the opportunity to meet and be around deaf adults. They literally never see them and some of the youth interpret that to mean they will die before they get old. Having a Korean deaf group with confident, mature, capable deaf adults–some with gray hair–come to DDP lets deaf youth know there is life after their teens.
Yesterday 25 deaf people from a church in Busan, Korea came to visit DDP. It turned out to be a really affirming event for our visitors and for our students and staff.
Cambodians, especially the deaf youth, live a simple lifestyle that is closely linked to nature. Today there was excitement in the morning break when the students discovered two small green mangoes on a tree on our property–unfortunately too far out of reach for even our mango-picker poles.
I love mangoes but the idea of eating a hard, unripe green mango is yechy for me. Cambodians put some sort of salt or spices or something on the green mangoes and think it’s heavenly.
Today was Day 2 of the climate change strategy workshop. We had video presentations from speakers in Australia and India, and then the small groups went to work again.
This is the small group on climate and health giving a report on their group discussions and ideas.
Today a group from the Singapore Wesley deaf program came to DDP for a visit. Half of them have been to DDP before and it was good to see them again, catch up on what’s happening, and do some planning for the future.
Colin Allen is leading a deaf leadership training program at the Deaf Development Programme, with a goal of establishing a national deaf association. Colin is away for two months now but the training continues, led by the team he prepared.
Johnny Ng (R) is a deaf man from Singapore whom I have know for 30+ years. He met Sophors (L) and his wife Sreytin at a Catholic deaf meeting in Indonesia last year and they arranged for Johnny to visit Phnom Penh. Tonight after our mass, we went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant.
Ms. Miwako Fujiwara is a professional pianist, composer, and musical organizer, and last weekend she presented her 12th charity concert at the Sofitel Hotel.
The theme for this concert was Europe Day and each of the selections came from one of the countries of the European Union.
Miwako always invites the staff of DDP to attend the concerts and usually some of our deaf staff are part of our group. They don’t always receive and appreciate the full musical experience but they enjoy meeting others and here they were enjoying some croissants and pastries at the break.
