March 2010 1

Volume 3 Issue 4

March 2010

Emerging Leadership in Costa Rica:

Pura Vida por ANASCOR!

www.discoveringdeafworlds.org

By David Justice

Known throughout the world for its biodiversity, Costa Rica is home to nearly 12,000 plant spe-cies and 615 wildlife spe-cies (compared to only 104 in the USA).1 Sloths, spider monkeys, toucans, and dart frogs scatter the rainforests. Visitors to Costa Rica often head straight to the cloud for-est of Monteverde for a canopy tour where zip lines and suspension bridges lead through treetops over 500

feet high. Others visit the coastline to ride some of the best surf in Central America, or volun-teer to help protect leatherback turtles while they hatch their eggs. With so many natural re-sources and tourism draws, Costa Rica has become one of the most economi-

cally developed countries in Central America. Despite such progression, however, the local deaf community continues to face struggles parallel to less-developed countries in Africa and Asia. Costa Rica harbors a population of four million people, of which 26,235 are deaf. Incidentally, less than 500 deaf “Ticos” (Costa Ricans) communicate in LESCO, Costa Rica’s sign language that the government formally recognized in January 2001. There are only two deaf schools and nine available interpreters, all of whom reside in the capi-tal of San Jose. Employment opportunities are severely limited, and deaf role models are in high demand.2

Nestled in the outskirts of downtown San Jose rests a humble yet determined team of deaf leaders with Asociación Nacional de Sordos de Costa Rica (ANA-SCOR), established in 1974. Efforts to improve acces-sibility and opportunity for deaf people in Costa Rica are led by its president Randall Herrera and emerging leader Leonel Lopez. “I once had a respectable high-

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 employ-ment needs. For more information, visit www.discoveringdeafworlds.org.

Leonel Lopez collaborates with PROGRESO, a sister organization of ANASCOR.

Continued on page 2

2 Discovering Deaf Worlds

paying job for a publishing company,” states Lopez, who began signing at the age of 20. “But after one year of being the only deaf person in a hearing company with zero communication access or interpreting servic-es, I had to get out of there.” Lopez then embraced the local deaf community and began teaching LESCO. “I am poorer now, but happier and more mentally healthy with my deaf and signing peers!”

Herrera explains that despite the Equal Opportuni-ty for Disabled People in Costa Rica (Law No. 7600), there continues to be a lack of resources and funding available for deaf education and communication ac-cessibility. In addition, the government rarely consults with ANASCOR on needs assessment or policy im-plementation. “We severely need to improve the qual-ity of deaf education in Costa Rica,” Herrera says. “And we need more deaf people to receive proper training to become certified teachers in math, Spanish, LESCO, et cetera. This will enable them to become role models for the next generation of deaf children.”

While current reports indicate that LESCO is 60 percent the same as American Sign Language (ASL), local deaf Ticos state that the similarity is closer to 75 percent. Lopez adds, “There has been a heavy influence of ASL in Costa Rica over the years and many less educated deaf people have just accepted this.”

There is also a current movement to protect LE-SCO. “We need to preserve our native language, our home,” continues Lopez. Currently, an ANASCOR member is filming native LESCO users to document the language’s unique signed vocabulary. There is also no written or video LESCO dictionary.

Discovering Deaf Worlds has connected with ANA-SCOR to promote awareness of the work ANASCOR does and support its efforts to enhance opportunities for the local deaf community. For more information on ANASCOR, view their blog in Spanish at: http://anascor.blogspot.com. For the full World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) report on Central America (in .PDF format), visit http://bit.ly/ayXwla.

Sources:1Firestone, Matthew D. Lonely Planet: Costa Rica. Oct. 2008.2 WFD ( June 2008). Global Survey Report: WFD Re-gional Secretariat for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Region Survey Report #4. World Federation of the Deaf.

ANASCOR President Randall Herrera outside the main office in San Jose.

Emerging LeadersContinued from front page

Name: Bernard BraggOriginally From: Brooklyn, NYOccupation: Actor/LecturerHobbies: Painting, reading, traveling, writingRelevant Experience: Good-will ambassadorPlaces traveled: Too numer-ous to mention.I’m excited to work with DDW because... as a performer, I have traveled the world and am considered a leader in deaf theater. I am looking forward to supporting DDW’s mis-sion.What do you hope to accomplish with DDW? I would like to help DDW promote increased understanding and appreciation of deaf culture and arts.Quote to live by: Love the art in yourself, not your-self in the art. –Konstantin Stanislavsky

More information about Bragg is athttp://bit.ly/aiMQNc or

http://www.bernardbragg.com.

Bernard Bragg

Welcome DDW's

Latest Board Member

March 2010 3

Travel With DDW and Connect with Deaf Communities Around the World! We are launching an exciting and powerful new component of our organization – Discovering Deaf Worlds: Journeys. Two exciting trips to the jungles of Costa Rica and to exotic Thailand & Cambodia will be offered beginning Fall 2010. Travelers will tour the highlights of these countries and experience unique cultural activities while also visiting various programs and schools aimed at supporting the deaf community. The deaf population is oftentimes marginalized in developing countries. DDW: Journeys will offer these programs the much needed support and exposure they need. Trips will be fully guided and arranged by DDW and www.GoPhilanthropic.com, a humanitarian-based travel company. Guides fluent in ASL and the local sign language (Thai, Khmer, LESCO) will be provided. Details on these journeys will be announced shortly. If you are interested in more information please email ddwjourneys@discoveringdeafworlds.org

Thailand & Cambodia Costa Rica

On Dec. 9, 2009, the Indian government informed the Delhi High Court of its decision that deaf people not be granted the right to drive in India. Out of 220-plus countries in the world, 26 do not allow deaf people to drive, including India. This came as very upsetting news to the Indian deaf and hard of hearing popu-lation, numbered as high as 50 million people. The justification for this ruling: poor road conditions and alarmingly high accident rates.

Regardless of the law, many deaf people in India have driven automobiles and mopeds for years with no noticeable increase in accident rates as compared to hearing people. The Indian National Association of the Deaf is petitioning to have this decision re-versed, and the deaf community will continue to fight for their right to operate private transportation.The full article is available at http://bit.ly/d6i38j.

(Photo credit: Tiffany Lane of http://www.tiffography.com)

India Government Rules Against Deaf Drivers

Taxis, buses, rickshaws, bicycles, camels, and pedestrians flood the

streets everyday in India.

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.

– G. K. Chesterton

4 Discovering Deaf Worlds

Lao Sign Language: In the Right HandsBy Martin Momoda

Why a book on Lao Sign Language?

Laos is not a rich country. There is a severe lack of learn-ing resources. Get-ting an education is especially difficult for deaf people as they are unable to effectively express their needs and be understood.

Although there are more than 22,000 deaf people in the Lao People’s Democratic Repub-lic according to a 2005 report1, only three small schools are operating, serving a total of fewer than 150 students. There are no programs for early intervention and lan-guage development. Because of the lack of resources, most students are unable to read and write well enough to find good jobs. After school, they either go back to their villages or make money through heavy labor.

Most rural deaf children are isolated and never de-velop a communal language. Even in semi-urban areas, communication is limited to small pockets of signers. Without stronger social support and access to the In-ternet and video-capable mobile phones, Lao Sign Lan-guage cannot develop quickly. I hope Thumbs Up will help.

Many students object to using the current Thai books and there has been no Lao reference book in their hands until now. Thumbs Up appears to delight students since most never imagined that such a book could exist. What kind of education is available in Laos for deaf people?

In the capital city of Vientiane, there is one pub-licly run school. Hearing teachers at the school have been trained in Thailand. It is run by the Ministry of

Health rather than the Ministry of Education and I have observed a disappointing lack of enthusiasm and resourceful-ness among the teachers.

I never saw a book or even a note-book in the school and there was little interaction initiat-ed by the teachers. I saw one teacher berate a student and tell him he was stupid. On another occasion, a teacher said outright that

the students were unable to learn. I am convinced that this is not true.

For several weeks, I experimented with photocopied worksheets for simple English lessons. Many are inter-ested in learning English. I included pictures, signs and exercises in writing and thinking. The older students as-sessed the worksheet levels and distributed them to the younger children. Most students completed the work-sheets. They individually came to me to have me check the work and they showed satisfaction when they un-derstood something new. I had never before experienced this in hearing schools.

There are two other small schools, one in Luang Pra-bang and the other in Savannakhet. They will be financed by the Vatican through the Nuncio in Bangkok for the first few years2. At these schools, I saw more nurturing and care from the teachers and classes that are run well. On a recent visit, I could see that all the students had copies of Thumbs Up and had lovingly covered them in recycled paper for protection. One teacher adamantly defended the students’ ability to learn, saying that they were inquisitive and didn’t hesitate to ask questions. Their persistence was not dismissed. The teachers were able

Continued on page 5

Students from the Luang Prabang deaf school show off their copies of Thumbs Up.

March 2010 5

to articulate what they need regarding learning resources and @My Library, a community library run by Carol Kresge, which has respond-ed by providing Lao children’s books, tools for drawing and painting and even a deaf-friendly bingo game.

What comes next?

3,000 copies of Thumbs Up were printed. Four hundred copies have been distributed to all the schools. I will try to sell the rest to get a return on my investment so that I can start new projects. The books are not just for deaf students, but for hearing students and teachers of English as well. I have found that using gestures and sign language is effective when teaching English to Lao students, especially with over-sized classes of mixed levels and students with minimal experience in reading and writing. Most Lao students respond extremely well to kinesthetic learning and their concentration and retention is noticeably improved. I will focus my efforts on teacher training to promote the use of Lao Sign Language as a method (Action English) for teaching English. The response so far has been very encouraging.

In the future, digitally animated signing will be the best way to develop a more comprehensive dictionary. Digital data can be used to produce hardcopy books, videos and most appropriately for Laos, transmitted through mobile phones.

Closing Notes

Finally, a book has been written about the problems of development aid in Laos3. A 2006 report claims that foreign loans and aid equal about 80 percent of the state budget4. This money is not necessarily translated into human development. From my observation, dependence on foreign aid stunts initiative and resourcefulness. In

the worst of cases, projects are stonewalled until money is paid into certain pockets. In some ways, it is a mi-nor miracle that I could get Thumbs Up finished and to press. When insolence and greed take over, the young deaf students are the ones who lose. This is unforgivable when we have to watch the wrong people profit.

Martin Momoda publishes books for language learn-ing in the Lao PDR. Under the name of “momobooks,” 12 self-financed books have been printed since September 2008 with a total volume of over 70,000 copies. Thumbs Up includes 600 signs on 140 pages with signs represented in digital photos and directional arrows. Captions are written in Lao, English and Japanese. For more information, visit www.momobooks.asia, www.momobooks.blogspot.com, or www.betterplace.org/projects/1069. Sources:1 Clark, R. Service for deaf children in Cambodia and Laos. 2005. http://www.Idcs.info2 http://bit.ly/93djiA3 Probe International: http://bit.ly/bJEKhk4 Phraxayavong, V. (2009). History of aid to Laos: Moti-vations and impacts, Mekong Press.

ຢາກເຫັນທກຸໆຄນົໃນສງັຄມົລາວສາມາດໃຊ້ພາສາມໃືນການສື່ ສານ

Laos Sign Language BookContinued from page 4

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6 Discovering Deaf Worlds

Spotlight on Vietnam

By Michelle King

Vietnam is home to approximately four million people who are deaf or hard of hearing. There is no national standard sign language system, and for Viet-namese adolescents, this lack of standardized language creates significant barriers in access to education. Sign languages can differ from region to region, and even from one school to another in a given area. Accord-ing to a Global Foundation for Children with Hearing Loss report, 80 percent of Vietnam’s 180,000 deaf and hard of hearing children have no access to education. Most schools can only provide education up to the fifth grade.

One area of education that deaf Vietnamese adoles-cents are particularly lacking is sexual and reproduc-tive health (SRH). There is a shortage of teachers equipped with any sign language skills whatsoever, and teachers with skills that can target a SRH cur-riculum are proving rare.

Throughout Vietnam, the SRH vocabulary consists of simple words, such as “boy” or “girl.” Concepts related to reproduction, pregnancy, the transmission of diseases, and sexuality are not easily communicated within a formal classroom environ-ment. Such concepts are also not easily communi-cated in informal settings between friends, because of varying signs and different gestures.

Recognizing this problem, the World Popula-tion Foundation (WPF) began an SRH education intervention at Xa Dan School in Hanoi City for students who were deaf and hard of hearing in April 2007. The intervention began with a study to assess the breadth of the communication breakdown. At the onset of the study, which targeted approximately

300 deaf and hard of hearing students, as few as 18.8 percent of the students questioned provided correct answers about puberty, male and female reproductive organs and menstruation.

The WPF has since implemented its three-part intervention, which includes: 1) developing an SRH curriculum for deaf and hard of hearing students; 2) creating the first standardized SRH sign language glossary; and 3) providing SRH teaching skills for teachers.

To date, the glossary of 500 words and concepts has been distributed and is proving to be useful not only in the classroom, but also in the home, where parents are now able to communicate about SRH issues with their children.

Sources: http://www.lookatvietnam.com/2009/10/hearing-•impaired-kids-talk-about-sex.htmlhttp://www.presscenter.org.vn•“Sexuality Education in Vietnam: Benchmarks for •Sign Language” by Nguyen Hai Thuong, World Population Foundation, VietnamPhoto courtesy of http://• www.flickr.com/photos/krisvdv/336502237

Most deaf schools in Vietnam only provide education up to the fifth grade.

A Thank You to

Our Sponsors

Ralph P. DeStephano

March 2010 7

For more information, please contact ddwteam@discoveringdeafworlds.org

The ascent and descent of a plane ride can •cause your feet to swell. To minimize the chances of this happening, wear a pair of fluffy thick socks and kick your shoes off before the plane takes off. This can make all the difference for a more comfortable flight.A quick fix to separate items in your suitcase: •(1) Cut out a piece of cardboard the same length/width of your luggage; (2) Put all of your awkwardly shaped items in first (shoes, belts, toiletries, etc.); (3) Lay the cardboard in your suitcase as a divider; (4) Place your clothes folded nicely on the cardboard. You now have a makeshift divider to lift up and down that will keep your things neatly packed and easily accessible.

Source: http://1000tips4trips.com

Travel Tidbits

In Costa Rica, the average hourly rate for sign language interpreters is 1600-3200 colones (approximately $3-$6 in U.S. dollars).

Source: WFD ( June 2008). Global Survey Report: WFD Regional Secre-tariat for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Region Survey Report #4.

Did You Know...?

8 Discovering Deaf Worlds

On Jan. 12, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, just ten miles west of the capital city Port-au-Prince. The earthquake left over three million people in need of emergency aid. Limited information is available about the impact on the 93,549 deaf people living in Haiti.

According to the World Federation of the Deaf, the earthquake in Haiti destroyed one deaf association and two deaf schools. Fortunately, many of the children were either in a secure place during the earthquake or were safely evacuated. Efforts to rebuild are currently under way. The Deaf Welcome Foundation, for example, is

fundraising to provide communication accessibility for relief workers and deaf Haitian survivors.

Please research the following organizations for more information:

Institute Montfort Pour Enfants Sourds •(Montford Institute for Deaf Children): http://www.FriendsOfMontfort.orgCappa Sourd: • http://www.freewebs.com/cappahaitiSt. Vincent School: • http://www.cmmh.orgPAZAPA: Center for Handicapped •Children, Jacmel: http://www.pazapa.orgHaitian Christian Center for the Deaf – no •website availableDeaf Welcome Foundation: •http://www.deafwelcome.org

Note: The above list was compiled to provide DDW’s news-letter readers with information about resources for deaf peo-ple in Haiti. DDW has not visited Haiti, nor is DDW di-rectly involved with any of the listed organizations. Please research the organizations independently if you are consid-ering making a donation.

Sources: Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages 1. of the World, 16th edition. Dallas, TX: SIL Interna-tional. http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=haiti“WFD concerned on Deaf children in Haiti.” 2. World Federation of the Deaf. February 10, 2010. http://www.wfdeaf.org“ASD in the News.” American School for the Deaf. 3. February 2, 2010. http://www.asd-1817.org/page.cfm?p=392&newsid=7Photo Credit: Jason Krul; 4. http://www.mafkrul.com/Haiti/haiti.htm

Deaf Advocacy in Haiti

Follow DDW on Twitter!

Our handle is @DDW_Team, or go to

www.twitter.com/DDW_Team

To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.

– Aldous Huxley

March 2010 9

Bill Keenan and Bryan Hensel: Thank you for jump-starting DDW’s Fund Development Committee. Your guidance and call to action are leading this organization towards a sustainable and long-lasting future.

Patrick Smith, Annette Quiroga, Tanya Andrews, and Kerrie Emerson: As the logistics of our board meetings become more complex, we are all the more grateful to have your services. Thank you for providing accessibility for our organization.

Leonel Lopez and Randall Herrera: You have gone above and beyond the call of duty for your community in Costa Rica. Thank you for welcoming, educating, and inspiring us at DDW. You are natural-born leaders. ¡Pura Vida!

Lydia and John Dean: We’re so fortunate to have con-nected with you. Our co-venture with Go Philanthropic has unlimited potential to make an impact on deaf com-munities worldwide. Thank you for taking this leap with us!

To all of you who took the time to fill out our newsletter sur-vey: Approximately 70 percent of respondents feel that our newsletter appropriately reflects DDW’s values and mission, which means we’re on the right track!

The ANASCOR team: Your genuine kindness has rein-forced the unity of deaf hospitality our team has received across the globe. Thanks for making Costa Rica feel like home!

Shout-Outs!Shout-Outs!Shout-Outs!

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.

– Jawaharial Nehru

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