President Ruth Warick Journal Editor Carole Willans E-Mail: [email protected]E-Mail: [email protected]October, 2011 In This Issue From the Editor’s Desk - by Carole Willans 2 IFHOH President’s Message - by Ruth P. Warick 3 IFHOH Call for Nominations – by Anna Klemettilä-Sorri 5 EFHOH News - by Marcel Bobeldijk 6 IFHOH World Congress 2012 7 Norway – 22.07.11 9 United Nations Focus on Youth – by Karina Chupina 10 In Memory of Geoff Brown 14 The Mysterious Case of Vincent Van Gogh – by Robert M. Traynor 15 Travel to Africa – by Kees Twilt 17 Support for Ukrainian Children 19 Calendar of Events 20 News Bites 21 IFHOH Mission and Board of Directors 24 IFHOH is registered as a charitable organization at Vereinsregister Amtsgericht Hamburg, Germany (Nr. 69 VR 10 527) and is also an International Non-Governmental Organization having special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). All the views expressed in this Journal are those of the writer for each article and do not necessarily reflect the views of IFHOH. IFHOH Board President, Ruth Warick (Canada) Vice-President, Ahiya Kamara (Israel) General Secretary, Ulf Olsson (Sweden) Treasurer, Katja Vis (Finland) EFHOH Representative, Marcel Bobeldijk (The Netherlands) IFHOH Webmaster, Pertti Köyste
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President Ruth Warick Journal Editor Carole Willans
meeting was Mobility and Inclusion of People with Disabilities. This was the first such
meeting with speech to text support! Yes, it
was a historical moment for the Hard of
Hearing movement in Europe.
Lidia Best has represented EFHOH this year
at all European Parliament Disability
Intergroup meetings. It is the first time in
our history that we at EFHOH have been
represented at so many EP Intergroup
meetings.
Karina Chupina, IFHOHYP President, has been
elected Global Advisor at the Disability Rights
Fund. We are very proud and wish her much
success!
Kind regards.
Marcel Bobeldijk, EFHOH President
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The IFHOH World Congress 2012 in Norway,
the Land of the Midnight Sun!
Bergen, Norway, June 25 to 28, 2012
The theme of IFHOH World Congress in 2012 - “A Better Quality of Life!”
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Welcome to IFHOH World Congress in Bergen, Norway, June 25 to 28, 2012.
IFHOH and HLF (The Norwegian Association of Hard of Hearing) welcome you to the IFHOH World
Congress 2012 in Bergen, one of the most beautiful cities in Norway. The old parts of the city are
considered a world heritage site. Bergen is the gateway to the Norwegian fjords and an excellent
place to start a holiday in Norway by boat, train or a rented car. There will be different holiday
prospects with reduced prices for participants at the Congress described on the website.
The theme of the 2012 Congress is “A Better Quality of Life!” and the program will focus on the
challenges facing hard of hearing people at all ages and in all parts of life from birth to old age. The
programme will consist of presentations from both professionals and hard of hearing people
themselves. The preliminary programme is now on the Website.
To register, please go to the Congress Website – www.ifhoh2012.no where you can also receive updated news about the program, events and activities. (The Registration
platform for the conference will open no later than November 1, 2012.)
If you have any questions about the Congress, please send an e-mail to
As you know 22.07.11 was a day which changed the peaceful country of Norway
forever.
It is just terrible that one single man can have so much hate. But it is also
true what one of the young girls who survived said to CNN: "If one man can show
so much hate, think how much love we all can show together."
Monday night around 200,000 people filled the streets of Oslo with flowers in
their hands. They wanted to say that we resist hatred. We are sad to the
deepest thread of our souls. We cry in dignity. But nobody swears to take
revenge. Instead we want even more humanity, solidarity and love.
I want to tell you that both my family and I are doing well, but we cry
together with those who have lost one of their beloved.
Yours sincerely,
Knut
Knut Magne Ellingsen
President, FFO (Norwegian Federation of Organisations of Disabled People)
FROM IFHOH
Dear Mr. Ellingsen,
On behalf of the International Federation of Hard of Hearing People, I
wish to offer our deepest sympathies for the national tragedy that has
affected Norway and claimed the lives of so many men, women and
children. We join with you, our friends, in decrying the shocking end
of the lives of so many in your country although we cannot begin to
fathom the grief and heartache that you are experiencing. We know that
many members of our hard of hearing community in Norway will have been
personally affected by knowing family, friends and colleagues who were
taken in the senseless actions of Friday, July 22, 2011.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you in this time of individual and
national mourning. We know that you, as a people and as a country, will
rise up stronger from this tragedy and that you will repeal the threat
to the values and beliefs of a nation and its democratic institutions.
We will not forget those who died in this national tragedy; we
recognize that it will take courage, resilience and faith in the future
for you and your fellow citizens to carry on while engulfed in so much
pain. We know that you will rise up to the challenge in honour of those
who died these past few days and as a testament that the best of the
human spirit will prevail.
Sincerely yours,
Ruth P. Warick, President, IFHOH
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by Karina Chupina, IFHOHYP President
United Nations General Assembly
High Level Meeting on Youth – a
mainstream youth-focused event
with captions provided (and
fought for!)
I was honoured to represent IFHOH and
IFHOHYP at the UN General Assembly High
Level Meeting on Youth that took place July
25-26 at UN Headquarters in New York.
A long correspondence preceded my
participation, as I wanted to ensure that live
captioning would be provided during the entire
meeting. Without the additional advocacy from
my part and efforts from the UN DESA staff,
captioning accessibility would not have been
possible.
One of the reasons that made it such a
challenge to get captioning accessibility was
that the internal UN Secretariat-wide policies
and guidelines on accessibility were still being
developed. In these efforts, the joint IFHOH-
EFHOH-IFHOHYP letter on the necessity to
make the UN and EC meeting venues accessible
for hard of hearing people that was submitted
by IFHOHYP last year to the EC and the UN
bodies, was used as an advocacy tool.
Finally, after extensive exchange of IFHOHYP
messages and internal work of the UN DESA,
captioning was fully provided for the two days
of the meeting. IFHOHYP advocacy worked! A small step in the UN agenda, a big step for disability issues at the UN, for IFHOHYP and the entire hard of hearing community!
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The UN High Level Meeting on Youth with captioning on the two big screens!
The UN High Level Meeting opened with
captioning on two big screens. Ban Ki-moon, the
UN Secretary General, opened the meeting.
UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon
The captioning worked excellently, only the
letters seemed a little small for those who sat
in the far back. However, there was no
induction loop accessibility in the UN General
Assembly Hall, and old headphone models (one
ear-phone box) were impossible to put over
the ear with a hearing aid. At times there
were interpretation hiccups.
Funny thing: when the interpretation or
headphones did not work, hundreds of pairs of
delegates' eyes were fixed on the screens
with text/ captions. This is the point of inclusion - captions are helpful + useful not only for deaf/ hard of hearing, but for everyone in society!
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To people the captions on the screen looked as
something natural that they took for granted.
If they only knew what kind of work this
involves! I spoke about accessibility needs in
some interviews to the press, and one short
excerpt can be found here:
http://www.policymic.com/articles/why-young-
people-don-t-participate-in-politics. It is
worth noting that at previous UN meetings,
captions were provided for disability-related
meetings, but rarely or never for mainstream
meetings like this High Level Meeting on
Youth. A very good start for captioning to be
accepted wider in the mainstream!
Below me in the General Assembly Hall, I saw a
sign language interpreter translating speeches
for a representative from Sweden. Another
representative with a hearing loss! It turned
out that it was Malin Johansson, deaf and
young official representative of Sweden to the
UN General Assembly. She later gave an
inspiring speech in sign language! It was a
remarkable visibility of disability AND youth
at the High Level Meeting! She said in sign
language: "I regret that there are so few
young people representing youth here".
James Aniyamuzaala, past Board member of
IFHOHYP, spoke at the UN High Level
Meeting on behalf of the African Network of
Youth with Disabilities on the need to include
youth with disabilities into youth programmes
and ensuring accessibility.
James Aniyamuzaala
All three of us – Malin Johansson, James
Aniyamuzaala and I – were the only
representatives of youth AND disability issues
at the UN High Level Meeting.
Malin Johansson, James Aniyamuzaala and Karina Chupina
disabilities, but as usual, as part of "vulnerable
youth". We discussed with IDA and the UN
DESA that we need more advocacy for youth
with disabilities specifically and explicitly. The
strategies about uniting youth with disabilities
worldwide for this aim are under development
and you may hear about them in the near
future.
At RI, with Venus, Ilagan and Leonor of RI
IFHOHYP expresses its thanks to IFHOH for
their help in registering for the UN event, to
the UN DESA and Mr. Fred Doulton for their
support in pushing through the accessibility at
the UN High Level Meeting on Youth -
captioning on screen that helped not only hard
of hearing but all participants of the meeting!
Author‟s note: Before and during preparations
for captioning inclusion, I was in contact with
several good colleagues online, e.g. the CCAC
(www.ccacaptioning.org), and others on the
social media. The professional captioners also
merit a big thank you, along with all at the
United Nations who achieved communication
access for us all.
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We are sorry to report that Geoff Brown passed away after a short
illness on July 2, 2011 at the age of 84.
Geoff was a long serving member of the NADP Executive Committee, on which he held a
number of posts over the years, including Local Groups Officer, Membership Secretary,
Fundraising Officer and Webmaster. He also represented NADP for many years on
TAG. Geoff was a founder member of STAGETEXT and a past Chairman of Deafness
Support Network (DSN) in Cheshire. He was also involved with CICADA, a group for
those who received cochlear implants in Manchester, and with the National Cochlear
Implants Users Association (NCIUA). He was also a lay preacher in the Methodist
Church. Geoff‟s activities were not limited to
the UK either – he was a regular attendee of
the ALDA (Association for Late Deafened
Adults) Conference in the USA and
represented them in the UK and was also
Chairman of the Late Deafened People
Commission for the International Federation
of the Hard of Hearing (IFHOH).
Geoff never let his age stop him doing anything, and he had the energy of somebody
twenty years younger. He was at home with new technology, and although he was a quiet
and unassuming person he was widely respected and made a significant contribution to
the improvement of life for deafened people. He also acted as official photographer at
NADP Conferences so it is appropriate that the photo shows him engaged in that
activity.
His energy and warmth will be greatly missed, and all of us at NADP extend our
thoughts to his family.
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by Robert M. Traynor, Ed.D., MBA @ Hearing International
Robert M. Traynor Vincent Van Gogh (self-portrait)
(…) Vincent Van Gogh is not only universally recognized as among the great artists in history, but also
as the tortured genius and crazy painter who sliced off his own ear. Art-loving audiologists from
around the world have long been baffled by Van Gogh‟s loss of the external part of his right ear
(known as the pinna) and his much-discussed hearing impairment.
Van Gogh, one of the leading Impressionists, also takes his rightful place with other historical figures
who have suffered from Menière‟s disease. (…) Although his physicians diagnosed Van Gogh as having
epilepsy and madness, Hargrave (2011) writes that the painter was known to have suffered from
tinnitus, which he described as ringing or roaring in the ears, as well as impaired hearing and
intolerance of loud noises (classic Menière‟s symptoms).
(…) Van Gogh‟s inimitable fusion of form and content is powerful; dramatic, lyrically rhythmic,
imaginative, and emotional, for the artist was completely absorbed in the effort to explain either his
struggle against madness or his comprehension of the spiritual essence of man and nature. Before
becoming an artist, Van Gogh worked as a pastor, art salesman, and teacher. He was a well-known
recluse, sometimes spending hours in silence with his bible.
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Dr. Prosper Menière
Although Prosper Menière‟s 1861 paper outlining the disease that bears his name was published two
years before Van Gogh‟s birth, the condition was not well known or medically accepted in the late 19th
century. Therefore, it‟s not surprising that Dr. Peyron, a physician at the St. Remy (France) asylum for
epileptics and lunatics, diagnosed Van Gogh with epilepsy and thought this to be the cause of his
malady. Based upon this diagnosis, the painter voluntarily admitted himself to the St. Remy facility in
May of 1889. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound the next year.
For a century he was thought to have been epileptic and was well known as the crazy painter who cut
off his own ear. In an effort to correct the record, Arenberg et al. (1990), a group of neuro-
otologists, reviewed 796 of Van Gogh‟s personal letters to family and friends written between 1884
and his suicide in 1890. Their analysis reveals a man who was constantly in control of his reason, but
who suffered from severe and repeated attacks of disabling vertigo, not a seizure disorder. In their
opinion, the clinical descriptions in his letters are those of a person suffering from Menière‟s disease,
not epilepsy. (…)
Source: The Mysterious Case of Vincent Van Gogh‟s Pinna (Extract reprinted with permission of the
author), for the full text: http://hearinghealthmatters.org/hearinginternational/2011/the-
mysterious-case-of-vincent-van-goghs-pinna/
Editor’s Note: Bob Traynor is the CEO and a practicing audiologist at Audiology Associates, Inc., in Greeley and Johnstown, Colorado with particular emphasis in amplification and operative monitoring, offering all general audiological services to patients of all ages.