Close encounters with the Deaf kind!

It was a day full of adrenaline rush, at least for me and I guess for everybody else. A lecture on Deaf Culture and Filipino Sign Language workshop was held last December 3, 2005, Saturday at UPV AVR. At 8 a.m. right after my work from the call center Friday night shift, I met with 5 other Deaf facilitators and then we proceeded to UP and meet my friend, Sanley (classmate from Elementary), now a professor at UP Miag-ao campus. He was able to help me facilitate this event together with Ma'am Nice Landoy, teacher in Psycholinguistics. All in all there were 33 participants, UPV students with courses ranging from Psychology, Broadcast Communication and 2 other from West Visayas State University, majoring in SPED. It was one experience the participants could not forget. They were utterly amazed by the wacky and very confident Deaf facilitators namely Angel, Mary Jane, Christian Phyllis, George, Kristel Mar and Jonaden. Dotty, guidance counselor for the Deaf at SPED school and a hard of hearing herself gave a testimonial and shared her touching experience of what it is like being Deaf and being oppressed. We had small group sign language sessions, sign and acting presentation, games, lecture about the Deaf culture, Filipino Sign Language and a Basic Sign Language Class. At the end of the day, everybody were all smiles...as they learned a lot and are now aware about the Deaf. We hope that in their own little way they will become advocates themselves for the Deaf. See pictures of the Deaf in Action. Click the link Deaf meets the Iskolars ng Bayan.