Hearing out the Unheard: How the PWD are should be treated as real P too

January 24 2013, and an ACLE was on the way. We rushed to the Malcolm
Center, and headed straight for the Student Lounge. The ACLE was about the
PWD (persons with disabilities), more specifically the deaf. The speaker, although
dealing with Parkinsons disease, managed to put on quite an entertaining and
fun-filled activity. She talked about how people often disregard the welfare of
disabled people, and all of the incorrect notions regarding them. She told us
that the disabled are also people like us, and part of our society. She
emphasized on the habits most normal people do like ignoring them, making fun
of them and discriminating them from society. This, in turn, leads to them
isolating themselves from the world, and losing hope. By treating them as normal
people while considering their disability, everyone can reach out to them. She
also talked about the issue regarding the deaf in Congress, how they struggle to
create a language for them to use and communicate with. She talked about
the difference between the American and other sign languages and like other
countries, the Philippines should have its own the Filipino sign language. There
the students understood that the uniqueness and syntax of the modified
language has been suited to the Filipino context. After that, she showed us
some phrases, for asking questions, places, numbers, events, people, and others.
With a real deaf person to show us the gestures, we prepared ourselves. While
we tried to follow the demonstration with a lot of effort, we felt closer and closer
to communicating with her. Sure we only learned some measly phrases, but we
are slowly getting the grasp of what the demonstrator feels, and the effort she
makes to try and communicate to us. There we learned that the sign language
is exists not only to provide communication with other people, but also for the
normal people to reach out to the disabled. I hope to use this knowledge
someday, and it was really a one-of-a-kind experience.
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Aldrin Noda 2010-10243 BIO1