A CALL HAS gone out to Government and social clubs to assist with a necessary piece of technology that will revolutionize things for the hearing impaired.
Political and economic relations officer for the Canadian High Commission Charlotte Blumenshein said there was a relatively new piece of equipment called a bone amplified hearing aid (BAHA), which would make things much easier for them.
“It’s an application that sits in the back of the bone in the ear, and it allows people to hear. It doesn’t correct every single person that’s deaf, but the number of people that 15 years ago could not hear, but now through this technology can hear is phenomenal.
“And it’s something that I would really encourage whether it be the governments, or whether it be the specialists that deal with hearing problems to look at whether that technology can be deployed here.
“Because it can make the absolute difference in a person’s life . . . The absolute potential of the opportunities it would open up in their life, it would be phenomenal,” she stated.
Her son Gavin, who was born with one ear, is expected to be fitted with the device in a few years.
Blumenshein was speaking to the DAILY NATION on Tuesday during a break from a workshop facilitated by the National Council on Substance Abuse ((NCSA) on HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections and substance abuse, which is sponsored by the Canadian High Commission.
She said the commission was sponsoring the workshop because it fit into the security pillar, which was one of the three in Canada’s foreign policy. The other two are prosperity and governance.
“Under security, we look at youth at risk. It’s one of our key areas and regardless of youth in general, when you look at substance abuse and the danger that it poses to any of our youth . . .
“The fact that this happens to be a particular group that are hearing challenged, doesn’t negate them from having the issues of substance abuse, or being at risk of the substances creating havoc in their lives. So sponsoring something like this was something very [much] in keeping with what our overall policy is,” she explained.
NCSA’s Yolande Forde said the two-part workshop was for the deaf and hearing impaired, who are considered a hidden, vulnerable community in Barbados.
“This group is excluded from mainstream life in many respects . . . . A lot of them do not work. That is where, basically, their risks increase. They’re a close-knit society, and what has happened is that they would get together and do their own thing.
“But information has now reached the council that in some cases that activity is not always wholesome, so they too, like other young people, need structured, wholesome, group-based activities,” she stated.
Forde said the information was being delivered to them in a way that was comprehensible to them.
