Category: Deaf

People and activities in the Cambodian deaf world

Deaf Week–Day 4

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Day 4 of Deaf Week was a bit more low-key. The students and staff decorated their faces with Cambodian stickers.

This was also Julie Lawler’s birthday and the Phnom Penh staff celebrated with her at lunch time.

Deaf Week–Day 2

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Each day of Deaf Week our education students have some sort of fun activity. Today they made little hats from paper cups. Some of the students are really creative! All of them had a lot of fun!

Deaf Week–Day 1

This week the Caritas Deaf Development Programme is celebrating Deaf Week, along with deaf people around the world. Our big celebration will be next Sunday but we started today with an informal gathering at a location of Amazon Coffee which hires deaf baristas. The four participating branches each have two deaf people in the morning shift and two in the afternoon shift. This was an enjoyable way to start deaf week!

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Funding Process

Today Mr. Sim Kuytry came to DDP to talk with our management team about a partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID has asked VBNK, a local NGO, to identify and then screen NGOs and agencies that could have partnerships with USAID that could lead to funding. Kuytry was with us for three hours but it was a very engaging conversation and very positive.

Hong Kong visitor

Yesterday, Mandy, a young deaf woman from Hong Kong, visited DDP to learn more about our program. She knows some of the Hong Kong deaf people I used to work with. Now she is a government civil servant and working on a masters degree. Here she is with Sophy, our Education Project manager.

Job Coaching 3

Today was the final day of the job coaching training. Kevin Cook presented a lot of good material in these three days. Now the challenge for all the Caritas Cambodia projects is to utilize that information in strengthening our support of appropriate employment for people with disabilities.

The group discussions throughout the training were short and focused and everyone participated.
Many, the director of a large autism school, reflected on how they could implement Kevin’s ideas.
At the end of this third day, Kim Ratana, the Caritas Cambodia director, presented certificates to all who participated.

Job Coaching 2

Kim Ratana, the director of Caritas Cambodia, offers some comments on the training the Caritas projects are undergoing.
Invited to this job coaching training were all the Caritas Cambodia projects that deal with employment and people with disabilities. Here Kevin Cook explains about assessment of clients to see if they are ready for employment.

Job Coaching

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.

The training was originally scheduled for five days but then the government threw a wrench in the works by declaring yesterday a holiday on three days’ notice which necessitated shortening the time with Kevin to three days.
The style of the training involves a lot of interaction and discussion in the table groups and then quick summaries of their thought and ideas.

Visitors from Korea 3

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.