Gallaudet Connects

Gallaudet University is truly well known around the world. It’s worldwide reputation is equivalent to the universities that US presidents attend, like Yale, Oxford or Harvard.

Students and alumni should have pride in attending Gallaudet University. It helps in the long run. Whether you are traveling the world or just applying for a job, the name Gallaudet gets your foot in the door. For example, the principal at Ikuno Deaf School in Osaka allowed us to visit because I went to Gallaudet.

Another unique aspect of Gallaudet is the strong social network. I met up with Emilio (who also graduated from Gallaudet) in an apartment in Japan. We truly are leaders in the world. I have met many deaf people from New Zealand, Australia and Japan who dream of attending Gallaudet University. Gallaudet has given us courage, education, pride and ambition to make a difference in the deaf world.

Thank you Gallaudet!

Arigato Sakai Deaf School!

When was the last time you jumped rope? Does your mom observe your classroom in elementary school? Do you know how to greet someone in Japan?

The day after we arrive in Osaka, we were honored with the opportunity to visit the Sakai Deaf School. Before visiting the school, our friend Miro helped arrange communication accessibility.

Japanese Sign Language
American Sign Language
New Zealand Sign Language
International System Language
Spoken Japanese
Spoken English
Cued Speech

...were all the languages used throughout the day for us to understand each other. And during our presentation, we communicated through two deaf interpreters in international system language.

We were given a tour by the Principal and Vice Principal, and impressed with how visual their education system is. In the elementary school classes, chairs were pushed aside for more interactive activities. Mothers often sit in on classes to observe and apply what the kids learn at school to their home life as well.

We were offered rice cakes in the preschool and jumped rope at lunchtime with the Jr High kids. The students were in awe of our blue eyes and wavy hair and asked us questions like, Do Americans have a gun at home? Have you met Paris Hilton? Do you like Dragonball? and Who will you vote for in the next presidential election?

After a nine hour visit, we left knowing that we made a difference in each others lives. More adventures lie ahead as we continue our journey through Japan.

Help us make contact in Japan!

We are nearing the end of our time in Australia and starting to prepare for Japan. So far we have done a pretty darn good job communicating in New Zealand and Australian sign. But from this point on, we will no longer have English as a default language. We are researching on line for schools and organizations to visit, and recognizing we will most likely need to work through multiple interpreters (JSL-spoken Japanese-spoken English-ASL).

Do you know anyone connected to the deaf community in Japan? Someone who works for a Deaf school, organization, or business? Someone who can help us translate from English to written Japanese?

Please send us an email if you have any contacts, resources or input for us as we travel throughout Japan. We will be there from Jan 17th - Feb 26th.

info@discoveringdeafworlds.com

Opening Day for Australia Deaf Games

After two weeks of working on wildlife and rainforest sanctuaries with the WWOOF program throughout the holidays, we have arrived at the Gold Coast. Queensland is known as the "sunshine" state, but is currently being bombarded with much needed heavy rains and the forecast doesn't look to change. The weather was no deterrent, however, for the 1200+ people who gathered at tonight's opening ceremony to honor the 700 athletes that will compete in this weeks games.

All five Australian states as well as New Zealand will challenge each other in Track n Field Athletics, Beach Volleyball, Darts, Eight Ball, Golf, Lawn Bowling, Netball, Squash, Swimming, Tennis, and Tenpin Bowling. The games are a long standing tradition since the late 1800s when New South Wales and Queensland first went head to head in a game of cricket.

After signing the Australian National Anthem, Aboriginals of Australia shared a visual storytelling performance set to drums. Local Maoris from New Zealand also performed the infamous and intimidating "haka" war dance. A team of 6-8 interpreters and CART captionists made tonight's event accessible to all hearing and deaf people. Throughout the week, social events such as a deaf joke comedy competition, signing karaoke, and a debate on hot topics in the deaf community will be held. We are pumped to be here this week for the games, and also have the opportunity to meet and interview many leaders in the Australian deaf community.

For more information, visit http://www.austdeafgames.org.au

WWOOFing experience!

Coming from an outside view of not knowing much about the native animals of Australia, we had an opportunity to live at a wildlife sanctuary in the Adelaide Hills. For the past week, we’ve been surrounded by kangaroos, koalas, platypuses, potoroos, wallabies, bandicoots, possums and many other exotic birds and animals. They all live safely in their natural habitat of native plants and trees. It’s a 15-acre fenced in wildlife paradise maintained by the Barnard family.

This experience was made possible through the wonderful program of WWOOF (Willing Workers On Organic Farms). WWOOF hosts provide members with free meals, accommodations and education on the local environment in exchange for 4-6 hours of manual labor. We worked hard clearing tree-size weeds and building a fire prevention system for the house (since bush fires are a harsh reality here). We were spoiled with Melinda’s delicious cooking of sushi, spring rolls and pumpkin soup, to fancy-shmancy toasted sandwiches and an exotic "WOOFer's Delight" salad that you'll have to taste for yourselves some day! Meals were an opportunity for Mel and Tony to share their knowledge of the local habitat, and learn from us about international sign languages and Deaf culture.

So here’s a few fascinating facts about some of the animals we’ve helped take care of this week!
In the 1970’s, Woylies were thought to go extinct with only 200 left. But thanks to efforts from Wildlife Sanctuaries & National Parks their numbers are back up to 70,000 today.
Kangaroos can decide to have a male or female baby. They can also stop the development of their embryos in harsh environment conditions such as droughts or fires.
The platypus can dive 80 times an hour and stay under water up to 10 minutes.
A Potoroo is a tiny kangaroo only 20cm high.
And a Wallaby has an average lifespan of 17 years.

Thanks Mel, Tony, Alex, Max & Eli! It was honor to be a part of your lives and the work you do.

Photos:
Christy and Joey the Kangaroo
DJ workin the weeds
The Barnard Family
Tony & DJ installing the fire prevention system on the roof

Freedom, Vitality and Limitless Potential

That is the vision and logo of Deaf Children Australia (DCA), a national non-profit organization based in Melbourne, Australia for the last 143 years. There are currently over 16,000 deaf and hard of hearing children under 21 in Australia and 500 babies are born with a hearing loss each year. DCA strives to enable these children and youth to realize their full potential.

Today a large audience of children, parents, teachers, administrators, and staff gathered at DCA to watch Christy present about Survivor. Four years later and on the other side of the world from The Amazon, Christy continues to be a strong motivational speaker and role model. Instead of the typical “what bugs did you eat and where did you poop?” questions, the DCA children were more interested in questions of communication and interaction with the other hearing contestants. They were brilliant!

The presentation led to our Discovering Deaf Worlds project, as we shared our vision to connect with deaf and hard of hearing communities around the world. Communicating through interpreters from American Sign Language to Australian Sign Language to spoken English, we explained how we are constantly adapting our language in each country we visit. By the end of one year, we will have had a taste of 15-20 different signed and spoken languages. Many people at DCA recognized how together we bring a unique deaf and hearing perspective to our project.

After a tour of DCA’s campus and history, we met with a class of students. They were fascinated to learn about our traveling adventures and how we came up with the DDW project. It all started with a shared dream to travel the world. We then challenged the students to come up with 50 things they want to do in their lifetime to follow their dreams.

The overall message today from DCA and DDW was that deafness is no barrier to do what you want to do. Thanks to DCA for your support and warm welcome to visit. We had a BLAST getting to know you all!

For more information on DCA visit: www.deafchildrenaustralia.org.au