It’s day 2 of the World Deaf Awareness Week (24th – 29th September), and as promised we present you the second article. In the coming article, we’ll speak in detail on the difficulty that people hard of hearing face and how vestibular rehabilitation therapy can help. This article is written by an 18 year old girl, who sends out a strong message to the mass, about what it really feels like to be special. Name of the girl is kept confidential on purpose as their institute asked us to.
If I were to introduce myself, I would probably ditch all the fancy words and stick to C.O.D.A. You may wonder what is CODA?
Child of Deaf Adults (CODA)
Those blessed ones who might not be deaf, but born to deaf parents. CODA are those who’s upbringing is largely based on signs and signals since the childhood. CODA are those whom the society treats different. Now that we are talking about differences, let me explain you this.
Difference between Deafness And Disability
These two ‘D’ words certainly are a buzzkill and conversation stoppers. Anybody would like to dissociate from this ‘D’ tags. Especially when it becomes the undeniable shaper of life, of relationships. Being a CODA, I have a better insight into both worlds, the deaf culture as well as the hearing culture. “Deaf Culture” is how one defines the group of deaf people. A deaf or hearing impaired person can basically do what any ordinary ABLE person could do. They just do it differently.
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I was raised by deaf parents, you were perhaps raised by abled parents. I was raised by them just like you, only a bit differently. This should convey the message that ‘Disability is not an Inability’. They too can communicate in their own ways. Yes, being hearing impared they cannot hear. But this only makes our other senses stronger. The deaf community use “lip reading” and sign language to communicate with people.
One may not really hear to understand. Many lip-read so well that they can easily understand, what the couple sitting at the corner table in the café are arguing about.
Now would you still call that a disability?
– Anonymous Writer
Age:-18
We think this is a wonderful article conveying a very strong and serious message to us. If you think so too, then share and help us spread the awareness to everyone.
For rest of the Deaf Awareness Week, team Campus Times Pune will be bringing you more content related to the School of Deafs in Pune (Name kept confidential on purpose)* and help them reach out to more and more people through us.
One of the founding members of Campus Times Pune. Passionate about photography. A big fan of stand up comedy and anything that doesn’t involve Sajid Khan or Honey Singh. He has a new found love for cutting chai and also some John Mayer music. In his free time, he likes to goof around with a little bit of web designing and watch Arnub Goswami debate with himself.
