Monthly Archives: Dec 2019

Mobile phones everywhere in the street, in cars, in the cafe, in the toilet room, on the bus even at home.

Good grief! It can be damn nuisances to see these young people, students, and adults using mobile for communicating out there on your sight.

This morning we went to Morrinsville to avoid the city of Hamilton for quick shopping, paying the bill for the person I am supporting and my mileage claim cheque at the bank. We decided to head out to a cafe for our morning tea, and we sat outside, looking out in the street.

Thinking about the past – how people communicate?

How difficult for many Deaf/Hard of Hearing people because of the barrier?

Here is what the telephone looks like many years ago.

These kinds of phones were permanently installed inside the house or in the phone booth. These phones can not be removed to take away when you are traveling to another city/town. Imagine the photo on the right – a boy was calling Santa during the 1940s. All Deaf people couldn’t hear over these kinds of phones because of no face to face. It was okay for you, people who can call and visited any of your family or friends. Many Deaf people take a car or bus to visit a friend or family on the other side of the town/city, but only to find their Deaf friends were not home, then to travel to another Deaf friend’s home. It was a waste of petrol, money if they were catching the bus and times.

Who really invented this type of phone?

Alexander Graham Bell – Wikipedia

from Elon University

It was Alexander Graham Bell along with Thomas Watson by 1876. Did you know that Alexander had a deaf mother – Eliza Grace Symonds Bell and his deaf wife – Mabel Hubbard? Did you know that Alexander was a teacher of the Deaf (also he was an engineer/inventor)? His mother and his wife were an audism by using lip-reading and speech therapy. Of course, no sign language!@

Moving forward with much new technology of communicating trends and it made people, including Deaf/Hard of Hearing people’s lives better and easier anyway in the world.

The problem is everyone is carrying with them by walking, driving and having a meal at the same time looking at the social media on the table. It is dangerous to send a text or chat over the mobile while driving the car. Where are the manners?

For us, we put our mobiles in the pocket or in my handbag when we go out shopping or to see the doctor. When my partner drives a car, he would pull over to the side lane/bream of the road and answer the call.

Yes, it made our lives better to communicate with Deaf people, staff, doctors, police, and family.  From old phones into fax machines, then mobile by using texts or voice over mobile and internet such as social media, twitters, Facebook, chat, messengers, emails, skype, video conferencing, and many other apps. Sadly not to all Deaf people who can not afford or their ‘funding applicant’ declined for any ‘wonderful’ communicating technology.

Waking up in the early hour of the morning!

Peeping through the glass window while having breakfast and a cup of coffee.

Mm, what is the next plan to do out in the extensive gardens?

Let sort out which projects I made a list to do over five years. To complete the new vegetable and herb garden or do weeding in the large centre flowers, native shrubs, and carpet roses garden or do the clearing of the old displaced house that to be disappearing by the end of the year?

What more can you or I do for the lovely beautiful day? Why should the lovely day spoil my plan or your plan? Fear not! I have the most extended holiday – four weeks leave, for I have not had any holiday throughout this year apart from having muscles/nerve flared up and bronchitis for a month due a wet season.

One of the big jobs that have been sorted and we will have to wait until the second week of January 2020. One tallest tree – gingko out in the cherries field for I called this field because five cherry trees bloomed light pink flowers each year. This gingko tree will be chopped down to the ground, for it is creeping toward the live power line that has 11kvolts. One most significant oak tree – one most extended branch will be prune hardback to the main trunk of the oak tree away from the power pole. Hooray, for I will not let Peter prune this tree. It is a dangerous job. Then the sunlight will be peeping through the future new garden, and a few fresh fruit trees in the soon-to-be disappeared house section. The third tree is a Euonymus, and it will be pruning down to the roof height. Who will be doing the tree jobs? Well, the WEL company arranged the arborists, and we will keep cut up woods for our fire heating and mulches for our gardens at no cost.

Mm, probably do the vegetables and herbs garden first because I need to make the compost bins made from old roof sheets of the displaced house. It is budget and recycled wise saver for any of you – the gardener who wishes not to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on the garden.

Oh, oh, what a fun way to do the gardening when you get stress or feeling annoying by a bad new or a bit of bother!

Ohh, what a sight of the rose garden blooming next to our bedroom window!

Must not get grumpy for the box hedges are not a complete set as Joseph the dog spoilt it by peeing few box hedges while Jazz ran inside the rose garden chasing rabbits. Mm, it is still looking nice and handy for me to walk inside the rose garden without lifting one leg over the box hedges.

Another day has gone past!  How flies fly out through the day into night!

Sigh, let rest and sleep through the night!

A time to think about Jesus and the family, especially God’s gift to everyone, including people with disabilities like myself!

I often get ‘pity’ or ‘feeling sorry’ for I am deaf by other people, BUT they do not actually realise Jesus gave me a gift – deaf among with other skills such as leadership, advocacy, mentoring, ability to do problem-solving etc. Whenever I meet new people, and I tell them that I am deaf. The new people gain some shock or disbelieve that I am not deaf because I speak if they do not sign to me.  I am happy that I was born deaf and got the ability to become independent from an early age to the present.  I do not need a cochlear implant or any other type of medical devices that make me hear better. Yes, I do have a pair of hearing aids, and I use for work, around the home and in the community. I know some of the people blame themselves or feeling guilty if their child or one of the members in the household when a child/person became a disability. Then they turn to look for a cure under medical/science. For example, my hearing partner – Peter suffered 28%-33% of burns during his bad experience with his ex-family in the past, and Peter also had two hip implants during his motorbike accident. He did not blame himself, and his past is no longer with him because his life is moving forward where Peter is happy and enjoying with our dogs and me in our home. Peter is on the journey by rebuilding the relationship with his son and his new family. That is a start from 2013 to present.

Everyone is different in their own lives! Not everyone is Christain, Muslim, even non-Christian or Atheists.

Wars and fighting around the world, people, including children, are starving, becoming more poverty, homeless and many other issues. The weather such as firestorm, tornado, heatwave, even a volcano erupted, play a significant impact on people’s lives and their homes, businesses where they lost everything.

We can not control Mother’s Nature in here, and we need to learn to live with this and change the way we do, e.g. chopping all the trees down and suddenly caused to have a landslip. We need to plant new trees to control the soils in the ground to prevent from landslip, for shelter/shades even to build a new home or furniture.

Reflected in 2019, it has been a rough start for anyone:

• bushfires in Australia, California, Europe
• the heatwave in Europe and Australia,
• violent storms in Asia, the volcano erupted recently in New Zealand
•  violent wars
• families and friends who lost their loved ones, including our family, lost an aunty.
•  the epidemic of measle in New Zealand, Samoa
•  the protesting over Brexit in the United Kingdom and Europe
• and many other issues around the world

Every early hour of the morning, I woke up to find a sunrise over our existing house and the new vegetable and fruit gardens. Count me blessings for I wonder what God provides a job for me to do before I start work. My faith is remaining strong and find a way to do the work for our home and garden, to assist people with disabilities even Deaf people, the people in the community whenever I go and visit, involve with many Advisory and Leadership groups.

Of course, some people often left me out or tend to forget about my turn to speak (sign)  during one of the Leadership meetings. Usually, not everyone took my advice that will work for them, sadly they choose somewhere else and often does not work or found a bit of problem.  I read one of the poems and here is one which is useful. It is called “Don’t Quit” by John Greenleaf Whittier.

Reflecting back to 2014, where we invited my extended families to join with us as a home welcoming/Christmas lunch. We moved on November 26th, 2014, and spent our first Christmas as a joint homeowner here in Eureka, Waikato. This family gathering was the first time, but nothing more, only two to four family members visited here since 2014 apart from the following Christmas Day 2015 to the current year. The most frequent disabled visitor, along with his brother who came up to visit us every January. This disabled person is Jacek, and he comes to visit us for lunch or an afternoon tea during the year.

The ‘quote from Lao Tzu’ block is sitting on my work table where I work from home. This quote helps me daily when I think of doing the work for other people with disAbilities, people in the community, doing Deaf history research, making enquires to the staff of the Government agencies, and keep in touch with family and friends rarely. In our past times, I do the gardening works while my partner Peter do the carpentry, odd gardening jobs such as ride-on mower, repairing odd jobs, etc. We tend to have plenty of time out from our works in the city of Hamilton and greater Waikato where Peter work and I travelled to Cambridge, Huntly and Te Awamutu.

Most of the times when I am out in the gardens and I noticed so much layout of the garden, by an additional garden in another section, flowers and the more I discovered odd flowers or bulbs lying deep in the ground. It gave me joy and relief that I do not need to buy flowers from the nurseries. Well, our property is 0.36ha – fields with plenty of tall trees, wider trees for shade even acted windbreak shelter against vegetable gardens and new fruit trees. Plenty of rooms for cricket, footy games and dog runs by chasing down many rabbits. Plenty of trees provide us with some shade during the long hot summer days. Yes, a lot of gardens has been changing and improving better with less weeding maintenance for me each year. One of my cousins was envious of us because she said we have orchards and large fields with gardens and trees. She visited with her dog rarely when she can in the past.

My favourites are:

• the autumn time where many leaves on the ground
• relaxing when the sunset shows beautiful colour displays through our kitchen window or in the courtyard where we sit in the cool evening.
• fruits and vegetables ready for making chutney, jams or eating plus to give to Jacek and my workplace as a food parcel to some of the Deaf people I visited.
• Spring times what a wonderful sight to see and to smell all the flowers blooming and showing display colours out in the fields.
• fire heating for long cold winter evening before we go to bed.

Yes, we do have our ups and downs such as dogs bought dead possums, hedgehog or rabbits inside the house as presents for us, love to make a mess while we were out working or shopping. In the past, we have had hot water cut by stupid tradesmen who were building extended rooms across the road from us plus the linemen discovered they cut the cable illegal. Peter tried to remove the old rusty thermostat out of the water cylinder. It was a tough job but we got there and still find no hot water. We did not have any hot water for five days and I used my workplace for a shower. The mouse chewed the phone line in the attic while our broadband internet was offline for a week. We lost our two dogs since we moved here. We demolished the old house where there were two houses on our property and we used woods from the old house for fire heating, bbq and of course Peter uses for his woodworks while our neighbour comes and use the good wood for his woodwork as well.

Surely I have one or two projects which I am hoping to complete within a year or a year and a half from this year. The last two years ago I battled my health problem which called radiculopathy degenerative disc disease on my right side. Each day I take easily and rest often when I need away from work in the city of Hamilton and greater Waikato.

Rarely, we do not get plenty of family visits here each year, just two or three visits a year.

We are privileged to found a home for us and to allow us to do something we want to do, have a healthy lifestyle, to grow fruits and vegetables from the garden and enjoy the breaks from works. We are no longer want to live in the city of Hamilton.

Here is a video clip – around 7 minutes. I did not include everything from our home and gardens. NOTE: Video can not be shared without permission.

“I want the United Nations to lead by example and invite you to join me in the moving decisively to achieve the goals of the United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy.” This quote is from the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres

Each year, we celebrate a special day called International Day of Persons with disabilities, and the date is December 3rd. This year the theme is focused on – Promoting the participation of persons with disabilities and their leadership: taking action on the 2030 Development Agenda.

There are 15% of the world’s population or one billion people – persons with disabilities. About 80% of persons with disabilities live in developing countries.

There are three main key points of the planning for every workplace, Government and their agencies, organisation, and many other businesses.

Three Key Approaches Guide our Work.

The strategy is based on three overarching approaches to achieve disability inclusion: Twin-Track Approach, Intersectionality, and Coordination.

1. Twin-Track Approach: Disability is a cross-cutting issue and should be considered in all our work – First track. Targeted programming is also required – Second Track.

2. Intersectionality: Factors such as gender, age and location inform an individual’s experience. These factors also impact people with disabilities and their life experiences.

3. Coordination: A coherent and coordinated approach is essential to accelerate progress, build on each other’s work and achieve inclusion.

The Four core areas of responsibility are: –

Core area 1: Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Management.

Core Area 2: Inclusiveness

Core Area 3: Programming

Core Area 4: Organisational Culture

Here is the example of photos that showed many persons with disabilities in developing countries.

A displaced Iraqi man, who fled from Islamic State violence in Mosul, sits in a wheelchair at Baherka refugee camp in Erbil September 19, 2014. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah (IRAQ – Tags: CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT SOCIETY) – RTR46YAX

In New Zealand, we have a large number of disabled refugees, including citizenship persons with disabilities, because they are genuine refugees from their war-torn countries such as Somalia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Colombia, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Kenya.

What about persons with D/deaf or Hard of Hearing even with other disability/ties? Yes, there are a small number of D/deaf persons and deaf with other disability/ties living here. However, there is no International Sign Language Interpreter or one or two ISL (International Sign Language) Interpreter available here; I am talking about Deaf refugees who have no English/ASL Sign language than their mother’s sign language such as Kenyan, Iraq or Colombia.

Is our accessibility improve or small improve around New Zealand or not?

In Hamilton, Waikato, Jean is currently involved with the Hamilton City Council and Access for All group, DPA (Disabled Persons Assembly), EGL (Enabling Good Lives) Waikato Leadership including Waikato District Health Board – Disability advisory group. In the last few years, we achieved the plan on a free accessibility concession for the bus fares for all disabled people, including youths in the Hamilton and part of the Waikato towns, by using the buses. Next year, in Hamilton City, there will be new recycled bins, and these bins are designed to have friendly accessible for all people with disabilities and older adults to take the rubbish out.

What about communication such as interpreters on television, warning text messages, or captioning showing on the video for social media/televisions? Because many Deaf people do not understand English better, and they struggle to understand what happened, even can not hear the warning announcements over the radio.

Jean recalled one day when she was driving to work from our rural home, which takes approximately 15-20 minutes. Jean checked her text messages and social media before leaving for work. Then she arrived at the intersection along Claudeland Bridge; Jean saw many people standing outside the shopping mall in front of her. Jean continues to drive toward the traffic lights by turning left, more people standing outside the shopping mall. Another turn left passed the second traffic lights, more people standing until she tried to enter the car park, for security officers were blocking her. Jean was told to park further away from the shopping mall. She found a car park and walked over to the Central Library, where there was a class. Police, security officers, and people everywhere – this baffled her and found it odd. Jean spoke to one of the librarians, and the staff responded to Jean that there was a bomb inside the shopping mall. Jean continued her way to the class and explained to them because her students were disabled and their staff as support workers. That day was the cricket match, and there were several bombs scares in other places in Hamilton several days ago. That was the reason for no visual or text message warning through social media. The social media journalists use radio for breaking new warnings, and they do not realise people who are D/deaf or Hard of Hearing like Jean. These D/deaf people can not hear the message over the radio, mobile voice mail, and other voice communication through social media. Now this problem is sorted and the Hamiton City Council set up a website through social media – Facebook for all people with disabilities including D/deaf people. The Civil Defense set up a warning message through the mobile app – Hazard Red Cross for nothing.

It is important to remember and to include every persons with disability/ties in your community when making the universal design, in the project such as disaster area, planning design in the park, shopping mall and many other things. The technologies are changing fast and these people with disability/ties are way behind advanced technologies.