Where there is no Sound or Light - Part One - The Sound
When I first started this blog I thought about what I’m going to write in here. Should it be about my writing? Should it be about screenwriting? Or simply about me?
Well, it should be about all that and more. Because everything that happens in my life on a daily basis gets translated into my work as a writer or screenwriter. As I said, I find inspiration in life.
And today I will tell you about my experience as a volunteer with Light into Europe. I will not go into details. There is too much to say but I will give you a link of the foundation to see for yourselves the kind of work and dedication a handful of people pour into this activity: assisting in any way possible the children and young people suffering from hearing and sight disabilities.
I will discuss a bit the Duke of Edinburgh Program and I want to do this because we have to make people aware of this program whichever way possible.
Yesterday, Athene Palace Hilton held the official reception of the program in Romania, an event meant to draw the attention of the Romanian local authorities, government and major players on the economic market that a new event is taking place in town and it requires their time and most importantly financing and concern. The event included the participation of many officials from the political, banking and entrepreneurial environment as well as the visit of members of both the Romanian and British Royal Families. This time I was part of the volunteer team and from behind the VIP curtain I witnessed an incredible sense of responsibility and devotion from the part of the Royal Families, as they took their time chatting with the guests, never forgetting to mention how important their presence was at the evening. Candid, human, polite and most of all normal – that’s how I saw these, otherwise, “untouchable” public figures many of us can never even get close to.
But enough about the fun part.
The program in itself, is formed of three parts: Bronze, Silver and Gold and is dedicated to children and young people between the ages of 14 to 24 and if one decides to go through all stages, it can take from 6 months up to a year and a half per stage to complete the program.
This effort is not meant to lead the participants to receive a certificate of participation (which they will regardless!), but to teach them how to become independent, confident and self-reliable. We are here to provide them with the kind of physical and intellectual activities that will help them develop personally: enhance their soft skills, handle new crafts, work and live in new environments, volunteer and commit to responsibilities, like every normal person out there. And most of all, we are here to show them, that despite their disabilities, the world can be a friendly place; that even though sometimes people can be unkind, they have the courage, intuition and self-control to step above such nonsense situations sometimes people create when they get scared and confused with a novelty such as their disability.
Because I do realize now we are scared and tend to push away from things we do not recognize or understand fully. And just to give a few examples that stand clear in my mind and that have irrevocably changed my attitude about certain aspects in life.
1. We were at the Peles Castle a few weeks ago, with 80 kids and young people, from kinder garden to high school and beyond. And on the bus these two kids, Gabi and Alexandra were trying to communicate with me and I had only learnt the alphabet in sign language at that point and could barely twist my fingers around to spell that, less anything else. Yet they were trying so hard to speak to me and I felt awful, puny and impotent not being able to understand them despite their efforts to spell each sign to me. Then their teacher (they are kinder garden level) asks Gabi to show her the letter A and he does it wrong. And then he’s showed how it should be done properly and with a very inquisitive mind and an incredibly sweet smile he does it again and I finally understand what he’s saying.
So I’m thinking, he’s just like my kid, if I had one. He is learning his own alphabet and gets the letters wrong just as our kids do. So where is the difference? And it’s heart breaking to witness the differences in behavior normal people display towards these little angels. So I here I come to my second example.
2. We’re in the Castle and one of the staff members is explaining the history of the place and we have a sign language translator to help. It’s not rocket science to figure out that their sign vocabulary is incredibly simple and scarce.
For example:
Staff: “The king has resided here since 1867 and since 1868 the palace has been the home of the entire royal family.”
Translator: “King sleeps here for a long time and king family sleeps here as well for a long time.”
I wish I could show you the signs for that to realize just how poor their language is.
And let me tell you – it won’t get any better unless teachers are taught the sign language so that in turn they teach these kids things about the world they live in, so they can learn more words and in turn produce signs for those new words. It’s the only way this works as people like us, who can hear, cannot come up with the signs they will use. But if they don’t know some things exist in words, how can they come up with a sign for it? From various studies it looks that our kids here have one of the poorest sign languages in Europe because their teachers and parents do not (because there are none!) classes to teach them how to communicate with them in the first place and enrich their vocabulary.
3.Which in turn, brings me to my third example. I met a young man who is in college, a specific branch in the Theological University where he studies icon painting and such. For him, being admitted was a tremendous effort and work as well as making it through the exams. He has now reached a point where he keeps failing written exams because he cannot express himself in writing. The question in the teachers’ mind is most likely: is he illiterate? Or: he can see and read words, why can’t he write them back? It has nothing to do with hearing!
Well, it does. If this person in his 22 years of life has never uttered a word he will not be able to relate it in writing. His vocabulary is what he shows through signs and if he only knows that many words, he will only write those words he knows even though he can understand everything else he reads – mostly. He doesn’t have a sign for “holy” or “Bible”. Then how does he write it, when he barely knows how to explain it through signs?
He was very bitter for not being able to make the teachers understand he cannot write so elaborately as they probably expect him too because he simply cannot. So we came up with the ideas of perhaps convincing the teacher to have an oral exam instead where a sign translator can assist in delivering his simple words into our more complex language.
I cannot begin to tell you how much our attitude towards these people matters. It takes a little while to get used to their manifestations of joy and unhappiness, when they try to articulate their happiness or sorrow through very sharp and usually very loud noises because they can’t hear themselves and so they sound awkward. But other than that, they are absolutely normal with dreams and laughter similar to ours, but usually greater fears than ours. Just remember, that on top of our daily struggle in everything we do, they also have to cope with US, and our misunderstanding of them and sometimes rejection.
This program we are now initiating is meant to make them trust us more and make us approach them differently. Please give a hand and make these young people look upon life with different eyes or, in the case of the blind, help them get a different touch of the world. They will amaze you! I guess I have to write a separate story about the sight impaired, because that is another extraordinary tale!
If you know anyone who could participate into the program please have them contact me or Light into Europe directly. It’s a chance that must not be wasted. Parents need it. Children need it even more. And so do we, as neutral observers.
Thank you for taking your time to read through this!
Hugs and much love! Mela
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