Like I Knew I Would

deafmuslimpunx:

I am glad to read a positive story from a deaf woman who had a good experience volunteering overseas in the global south. I don’t like to travel alone to the global south because so many people have a negative attitude toward the deaf, and toward people with other disabilities. There is such a widespread hostile response to deaf people. I had some bad experiences overseas, and for that reason, I am afraid to travel to the global south by myself as a deaf woman.

Please check the link below.

As a Harris Wofford Global Service Fellow, Teresa Pichardo was selected to participate in a Cross-Cultural Solutions volunteer program in Ghana. At the school where she worked, Teresa had a chance to work with students who are deaf like her and “open their world a little bit.”

Name: Teresa Pichardo

Exchange: Volunteering at a school for deaf children in Ghana

Disability: Deaf

What motivated you to volunteer abroad?

I love to travel, and I have an interest in teaching and working with students. I seem to connect with them. I also like challenges and working through them.I knew it would be a lot of hard work and that there would be a lot of self-motivation involved!

How did you fund your exchange?

I was surprised and grateful to be granted the Harris Wofford Global Service Fellowship, which covered the program fee for the Cross-Cultural Solutions program. In order to cover my airfare, I tried my best to work hard and save up money for a year.

What was it like to volunteer at the school with deaf children?

When I was deciding where to volunteer, I knew I wanted to work at a school for the Deaf. My experience at the school in Ghana was quite different from my school back in New York! I was a teacher’s assistant for a large class whose students had very different learning paces, so I had to balance my teaching to reach both slow and quick learners. In addition to being deaf, some students had disabilities such as vision disabilities or cerebral palsy. To teach the deafblind students, you had to use tactile sign, but not all of them were comfortable or familiar with doing that.

chonklatime:

SB48 would broadly require schools to provide general instruction and textbooks that include information on the contributions of “Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, European Americans, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, persons with disabilities, and other ethnic and cultural groups.”

It would also prohibit lessons from containing any material that “reflects adversely upon persons because of their race, sex, color, creed, handicap, national origin, or ancestry.” [read more]

I’m sure I should have a more nuanced reaction to this, such as that we shouldn’t have had to vote on a bill to make this happen, that we should have been doing this from the start…

but…

(Source: pantslessprogressive)