Healing the Wounded Heart Project in Hue, Vietnam - Discovering ...

Volume 4, Issue 4
June 2011
www.discoveringdeafworlds.org
Healing the Wounded Heart Project
in Hue, Vietnam
up feeling displaced, treated as a burden
within their communities. Nevertheless,
my first impression of this group was the
tangible presence of a strong sense of
solidarity among them: they were there
to help each other make the best of the
opportunity that Spiral Foundation offered
them. They quickly learned to
master the many skills needed not only
for producing the carefully crafted items,
but also for the accounting and marketing
of these items, while expanding
their own creative and self-taught way of
communicating among themselves and
with others.
Since 2003, items produced by these
Healing the Wounded Heart artisans visit a heart surgery artisans have been sold internationally
patient and her family in Hue, Vietnam.
by Spiral Foundation, providing them
with fair salaries, medical insurance,
By Marichia Simcik Arese
housing, a daily sponsored meal, and a
recreational allowance. Furthermore, all net proceeds
In 2003, I contacted Dr. Nhan, Director of the Office
of Genetic Counseling and Disabled Children poor Vietnamese children via Dr. Nhan and his office.
from sales are returned to help fund heart surgeries for
(OGCDC) at Hue College of Medicine and Pharmacy In eight years, the artisans generated enough funds to
in Hue, Vietnam. I suggested that Spiral Foundation help operate on more than 300 heart patients.
come to Hue to set up a permanent craft workshop, This is why every item they produce has a little textile
red heart attached that says, “Healing the Wound-
returning profits to fund heart surgeries for poor Vietnamese
children. His response was a big incredulous ed Heart.” By helping fund heart surgeries, the artisans
laugh. Since I do not speak Vietnamese, I asked him are no longer “disabled”; rather, they are empowered
to kindly arrange for an English-Vietnamese interpreter
to assist in setting up the workshop facility and to in-
healing the wounded hearts of heart patients, but also
to give to those even more in need. They are not only
struct the artisans. His answer was: “You will not need healing their own hearts.
an English-Vietnamese interpreter, since the artisans In 2009, with the help of OGCDC and Spiral Foundation,
the artisans opened a retail facility in Hue,
you will be working with are deaf.” My response was a
big incredulous laugh of my own.
Healing the Wounded Heart (HWH). This shop is entirely
run by the artisans, who are now experts in wel-
A week later, I found myself in Hue, working with
a group of 20 artisans, all deaf or with physical disabilities,
creating eco-friendly gifts made from recy-
accounting for their shop sales—including the convercoming
visitors, encouraging visitors to buy items, and
cled trash or discarded traditional Vietnamese textiles. sion of Vietnamese dongs to U.S. dollars, Australian
Many of these artisans had never received any formal dollars or euros. In the first two years of business,
schooling, nor any sign language training, and grew HWH donated its profits from sales to help fund 20
June 2011 1

Lê Thị Uyên Phương, center, laughs with deaf artisans
An, Lan and Nhan at the HWH Shop.
heart surgeries. As its profits grow, so does its capacity
to provide humanitarian aid. The artisans are now
no longer a burden on their community, but a precious
asset to improving the lives of many others.
Recently the HWH shop has expanded to include a
small tea room and fresh bar, where tourists can relax
and enjoy a cup of Vietnamese tea or a fresh drink.
The shop is truly a special place. In addition to being a
relaxing escape from busy Hue, it also supports a wonderful
cause. The deaf staff are incredibly talented at
communication, and are rightfully proud of their work.
Marichia Simcik Arese with a bag
(made of recycled water bottles)
created by the HWH artisans.
They are
enthusiastic
about
explaining
HWH’s cause, and accomplishments.
Come visit HWH, a place of the heart.
For more information about Healing The Wounded
Heart Project, contact the founder, Marichia Simcik
Arese, at msimcik@sprynet.com, or visit these websites:
www.spiralfoundation.org, www.ogcdc.org, and
www.hwhshop.com.
2 Discovering Deaf Worlds

From 1998 to 2011,
Spiral Foundation
has delivered more
than $800,000 in
humanitarian aid to
Vietnam.
June 2011 3

Leadership, Education & Empowerment
of Deaf People in Pune, India
By Atiya Hajee
Pune, a city in
Maharashtra, India,
is considered
a hub of education.
Despite its reputation,
Pune has not
provided any higher
education facilities
for Deaf people. It’s
a common situation
across the country:
Deaf education
Deaf students learning at LEED Pune.
in schools for Deaf
people sans sign
language, lasting
only up to class five
or seven. The students are then integrated into regular
schools where they have no special resources to assist
in their academic development.
It’s a tough situation for Deaf people here. We have
a huge pool of extremely intelligent Deaf people who
have been hunting for the right platform for higher education.
Integration into a regular school/college is very
unfair as there is no awareness about Deaf people in
the city. People do not realize that Deaf people need
sign language interpreters, and an accessible educational
system that is visual and caters to their needs.
Experiencing the non-accessible world of education,
Mohd Aqil Hajee (Deaf) realized that he was not
alone in facing these challenges. His friends and others
in the city were facing the same challenges. Mohd
Aqil and I (his hearing sister and an Indian Sign Language
Interpreter) decided to share what we learned
with our Deaf friends.
LEED (Leadership, Education, Empowerment of
the Deaf) Pune started off with small informal gatherings
at home. Deaf friends came over for an evening to
chat about topics related to Deaf development across
the world. Some information was shared by Deaf
friends who attended the FrontRunners Deaf Leadership
program in Denmark. Eventually we started
discussing the need to improve our English language
skills. Mohd Aqil then took it upon himself to share his
English language skills with his Deaf friends.
Realizing that our Deaf group had a very limited vocabulary,
we decided to build one. We encouraged our
friends to share the
vocabulary they had
and explain what
words meant to
them. We discussed
the developments in
various Deaf communities
across
the globe, largely
thanks to information
on the Internet
and shared by Deaf
friends. We realized
our activities
focused on certain
aspects of development,
namely
leadership skills,
education, and empowerment, and that is how we got
our name and logo.
LEED Pune has grown in the past two years from its
inception with informal sessions to a full-fledged program.
We do not follow a syllabus or have any collaboration
with institutions to guide us. Rather, we work by
instinct; we discuss the latest topics and encourage
our participants to share information. We are currently
structuring the program to enable measurement of our
success and failures.
During the initial stages, we tried hard to get the
participants to come up and share whatever they
wanted to, but they were shy and lacked confidence.
Today, quite often, Mohd Aqil and I have to move off
the podium as most of the participants have experiences
to share and topics to discuss. We have built
a two-way interaction at LEED Pune. We see confidence
growing, thirst for education increasing and an
interest to be more aware of things happening around
us—in close proximity, and across the globe.
At LEED Pune we have a strong team, which includes
four Deaf boys and me, who are working together
to bring about changes in society. We invite
Deaf leaders from across the country to share their
experiences and discuss topics like human rights and
history. We have made an impact on a few hearing
parents of Deaf people, who now feel that it’s essential
to use sign language for communication. LEED
Pune has also provided employment to five Deaf boys
in food-malls across the city. This is an achievement
4 Discovering Deaf Worlds

Shout-Outs!
Shout-Outs!
Shout-Outs!
Corey Axelrod: Thanks for volunteering to
raise our social media presence. In just a few
weeks’ time, you’ve helped increase the number
of people paying attention to DDW!
At right is Atiya Hajee, interpreter
and co-founder of LEED Pune.
for LEED Pune. It also has given our Deaf students
an idea of how the professional world works and how
interview sessions and trainings are conducted by
businesses.
We at LEED Pune believe it’s about time we brought
about such change in society, and to bring the change,
we have to be the change. Come visit us and encourage
us as we lead, educate, empower right here at
LEED!
For more details, visit us on Facebook at https://www.
facebook.com/pages/LEED-Pune/143735755685611,
at our blog at http://signersclub.blogspot.com, or send
an e-mail to leed.pune@gmail.com.
Lauren Bain, Shana Gibbs, Zach Handler,
Maria Justice, Mohd Adam Mahadi, Lyndsey
McGrath, Maria Nikolaou, and Lauren
Searls: Thank you for putting in the time and
effort to ensure a successful benefit!
Ken Bain: Your generosity is deeply appreciated—our
new PR materials look fantastic, and
we have YOU to thank!
Nancy Berlove: What a generous gift you have
given us in honor of your birthday! Thank you
for supporting our work; you have been so kind
to us over the years!
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
– Andre Gide
June 2011 5

Positively Influencing the Postsecondary Education of Students who are Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing
PEN-International
Postsecondary Education Network - International
NTID
PEN-International
For Students Who are Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing
http://www.pen.ntid.rit.edu
PEN-International is pleased to support
Discovering Deaf Worlds
PEN-International is funded by grants from The Nippon Foundation of Japan to NTID
Rochester Institute of Technology | PEN-International | National Technical Institute for the Deaf
52 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623
6 Discovering Deaf Worlds

Behind the Scenes of DDW’s Website
By Wade Holdraker
dedication and drive from
them both and the entire
I serve as the president
DDW team.
of WEBsolutions of New
I have seen the significant
differences DDW
York, a web development
and marketing firm selected
to redesign the Discov-
In my short time with DDW,
makes around the world.
ering Deaf Worlds website.
I’ve seen how much the
I joined the DDW team in
team cares and how hard
March 2010 as a web developer,
and my goal since
join the team on a DDW
it has worked. I hope to
the beginning has been to
Journey some day so I
provide a dynamic website
that would draw more
see firsthand the results of
Wade Holdraker designed DDW’s new website. can help in its mission and
attention to this amazing
DDW’s dedication.
organization.
Another goal I have is
I have worked with the team to create the best experience
possible for people visiting the DDW website. ity. DDW and I are constantly working together on new
to use DDW’s website to help make its vision a real-
This included easier navigation, a clean format, American
Sign Language videos throughout the site, an inter-
organization even more. I want as many people as pos-
ideas and finding ways to promote the website and the
active map showing the places DDW has visited, and sible to know about the great things this organization
much more.
is doing for deaf and hard of hearing persons both in
Working with DDW over the past year has been an third-world countries and locally.
amazing experience. I knew immediately after my first If you have any ideas on how we can make DDW’s
meeting with Davin and David that I wanted to be a part website even better, I can be e-mailed at webmaster@
of this team. I am constantly amazed by the level of discoveringdeafworlds.org.
June 2011 7

Did you know?
• Vietnam is the largest exporter of
cashews in the world, and the second
largest exporter of coffee and rice.
• When talking to senior Vietnamese
people, it is respectful to avoid eye
contact.
• Denying compliments is considered
polite and equivalent to humbly saying
“thank you.”
• A Vietnamese speciality is ruou ran
(snake wine). This is rice wine with
a pickled snake floating in it, and is
considered to have medicinal properties
and allegedly cures everything from
night blindness to hair loss!
• There are an estimated 10 million motor
bikes in Vietnam.
Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive.
And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who are alive.
– Howard Thurman
Deaf in DC
By Madan Vasishta
Now on sale!
DDW is off to Africa!
DDW is off to Africa
this summer! We will
connect with over 20
Deaf organizations and
schools in Kenya and
Tanzania.
Our goal is to learn
from local leaders about
the culture, history,
struggles and successes
of their Deaf communities. Making personal connections
is a crucial step to identify organizations that
share our values, preserve local sign languages and
reinforce locally-driven projects advocating for equal
rights, education, and employment opportunities for
Deaf people. As we build trusting relationships with
these organizations, we are planting the seeds for future
partnerships in East Africa.We will also attend the
World Federation of the Deaf Congress in South Africa.
Want to follow our Africa tour? Tune into our website
or Facebook page for regular vlogs; our first vlog is at
http://bit.ly/mFCTie.
Follow DDW
on Twitter!
To order a copy, visit
http://gupress.gallaudet.edu
Fifty percent of the royalties from
this memoir will be donated to
Discovering Deaf Worlds.
Our handle is
@DDW_Team, or go to
www.twitter.com/DDW_Team
Newsletter services provided by
T.S. Writing Services, LLC
www.tswriting.com
A Deaf-Owned Company
8 Discovering Deaf Worlds

When your voice is no longer your own
A commentary on the recent controversy
about the recognition of Lingua dei Segni Italiana (LIS)
There is a silent battle going on as I write this letter;
a battle over a peoples’ voice, their right to be heard,
and the ownership of their language, which may soon
be wrested away from them.
Most of the world does not think about sign language
as a method of regular communication, much
less place it on par with spoken and written language.
But as research has shown time and time again for over
50 years, sign language is indeed a language with it’s
own rules, grammar, and syntax, whether it be American
Sign Language, Chinese Sign Language, or Italian
Sign Language.
The Italian Deaf community has labored
for years to convince the government
to recognize Italian Sign
Language (Lingua dei Segni Italiana,
or LIS) as an official language.
They were able to successfully bring
a bill to the Italian Senate, but their
moment of near-triumph was also
where things took a heartbreaking
turn. The bill was approved, with LIS
retitled as “Language of Mime and
Gestures,” or LMG.
To demote LIS and label it a farcical method of communication
is ignorance, at best. At worst, it is modernday
colonialism; an attempt of the majority to subjugate
a minority. Hearing doctors, speech therapists, and
teachers have been telling Deaf people for years that
we must learn to speak—we must integrate with the
majority. And yet, time and time again,we have stated
that we are proud to be who we are, a people of the eye.
For decades, our voice has been drowned out by the of
the majority, and those who think they know better.
As a recent commentator on the LIS/LMG debate
stated, if the government going to rename Italian Sign
Language to “Language of Mime and Gesture,” they
might as well rename spoken Italian to “Language of
Moans and Grunts.” Language, like beauty, is in the eye
of the beholder. And as any anthropologist will tell you,
language and culture are inseparably entwined. A language
disappears off the face of the earth every two
weeks, and along with it, a culture, its customs, and traditions
disappear as well. If we start ushering languages
to the chopping block, we are amputating pieces of
our own humanity.
In all of my travels, one thing has reverberated: you
can’t stop Deaf people from using sign language. I’ve
seen classrooms full of Deaf children in India who are
forced to use only their voices—and yet, as soon as
they walk out the door, their delight at using their native
sign language is profound. I’ve met Deaf people in
Cambodia who were abandoned by their parents, and
had no language and no hope—until they were found by
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that taught
them sign language, and then they blossomed. When I
taught in China for 10 months, my Deaf students were
thrilled to have a Deaf teacher, because even though
we were signing in different languages, we could connect
more than they ever could with hearing teachers.
Every signer knows this: even though sign languages
are different from country to
country, and sometimes region to
region—when you meet another
Deaf person, often the first question
signed is, “Are you deaf? Me too!”
The strongest weapon in life a
person has to wield is his/her voice,
whether that voice is expressed
through spoken, written, or signed
language. The cry of the Deaf community
in Italy has been heard—
there have been protests from Tokyo
to Berlin, from San Francisco to London. But they must
also be heard at home in Rome, at the hands of the
government who will decide their linguistic and cultural
fate.
As Victor Hugo famously said: “What matters deafness
of the ears when the mind hears? The one true
deafness, the incurable deafness, is that of the mind.”
The Italian Deaf community and the global signing community
has voiced it’s concerns, it’s plea that we not be
diminished, trivialized, and eventually forgotten. I can
only hope we will be heard.
Davin B. Searls
Executive Director
1 June, 2011
On behalf of Discovering
Deaf Worlds, I express our solidarity
with the Italian Deaf community
in its fight to keep its
voice. To support the preservation
of LIS, sign the petition at
Davin Searls
www.petizionionline.it/petizione/
lingua-dei-segni-italiana/848.
For more information, visit www.lissubito.com or the
Facebook page at http://on.fb.me/kq4sHs.
June 2011 9

Sustainable Travel Tidbits
• Before you head out on your trip, unplug any appliance
that won’t be in use while you’re away, such as
computers, chargers, televisions, video game players,
and microwaves. As much as 10 percent of the electricity
used in your home is wasted energy burned by leaving
things plugged in when not in use!
• Schedule trips in conjunction with festivals. Not only will
you have a unique glimpse into the local culture, but
by attending authentic festivals, you are more likely to
support the living culture by spending money on food,
lodging, and locally-made crafts.
• Pack light! Every additional ten pounds per traveler
requires an additional 350 million gallons of jet fuel per
year. That’s enough fuel to keep a 747 flying continuously
for ten years!
• Instead of relying on bottled water, bring your own bottle.
Water-purifying tablets and filters are readily available.
Source: http://traveler.nationalgeographic.com/sustainable-travel-tips
What is DDW?
Discovering Deaf Worlds is a 501(c)(3)
non-profit international deaf advocacy organization
dedicated to empowering deaf
and hard of hearing communities in developing
countries. DDW strives to advance
the capacity of local deaf communities
around the globe to meet their social, educational
and employment needs.
When I let go of what I am,
I become what I might be.
– Lao Tzu
Discovering: Shuktara was edited and co-produced by
For more information, visit:
www.discoveringdeafworlds.org.
480 print, LLC
3446 Old Green Rd.
Suite 204
Cleveland, Ohio 44122
440.781.2773
ksbain@roadrunner.com
Special Features Include:
More stories from Shuktara, Meet Pappu
and DDW: Journeys slideshow
www.discoveringdeafworlds.org/support
10 Discovering Deaf Worlds

DDW’s first annual benefit:
Celebrating a year of success!
On April 27, DDW hosted its first annual benefit to recognize Anita Pelletier and Michael Cooney of Nixon Peabody
LLP as DDW’s 2010 Service Providers of the Year. With over 200 attendees and 18 sponsors, the benefit
was a tremendous success! Special thanks to PEN-International, LSF Study Abroad at University of Rochester,
and The Patrick J. Martin Foundation for your support. DDW is already looking forward to next year’s event!
An even mix of 200 Deaf and hearing people gathered at ONE Lounge for DDW’s first annual benefit.
DDW International Program Director Dave Justice
with DDW board member Stacey Miller.
Master of Ceremonies Davin Searls gives away
door prizes with DDW Associate Shana Gibbs.
DDW’s 2010 Service Provider of the Year
Nixon Peabody Associate Anita Pelletier,
DDW Board President Harold Mowl,
and DDW Executive Director Davin Searls.
To see more pictures, please “like” us on
Facebook at www.facebook.com/
DiscoveringDeafWorlds.
June 2011 11