Counting the Days Until the World Goes Quiet

This is a touching story of a young woman - Jessica - and her chosen journey towards deafness. Jessica had Neurofibromatosis (NF2) - a genetic disorder that causes growth on tumours on nerves. One of the effects is growth of tumours on auditory nerves - which will eventually affect hearing. When her brain tumours were detected, Jessica had to make a choice - get operated and lose hearing or do not get operated and lose life.

What comes of this heart-wrenching story is the way Jessica chose to handle the "adversity" that faced her. She kept a video log of the last 30 days of her hearing life and face the impending silent-world head-on.

Jessica was featured on Good Morning America on ABC News.

See the video and read the full story here: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Story?id=5666574&page=1


BTW, the video is not captioned. Do you see an irony here? :)

Recognition for Std X toppers

• 17 Speech and hearing impaired children were felicitated for scoring over 60% in their SSLC exams (Std X under Karnataka board)
• The function was organized by the Foundation for Art and Culture for Deaf.
• The Founder of the foundation is A K Umesh, a hearing impaired person himself, who works at Geological Survey of India.
• The foundation supports differently abled children and recognizes academic achievements by providing scholarships.
• Most of these children have studied at regular schools.
• Varalakshmi, a parent: "My daughter Lakshmi scored 81% in SSLC. Though she is hearing and speech impaired , we got her educated in a normal school and she topped her class."
• Mohammed, a parent: "Both my children are hearing and speech impaired but this has never been a hurdle for excellence . Teachers too have a significant contribution to their success."
• A teacher: "Scoring over 60% by comprehending lessons through lip-reading is an achievement to be proud of."

From The Times of India: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Bangalore/Special_celebration_for_special_children/articleshow/3354247.cms

Enabler - Anubhuti Mittal

Anubhuti Mittal is a mediator between two unlikely parties: corporates and visually-impaired people who want work.

Anubhuti is 35-year old MBA from Allahabad University' and former assistant vice-president (human resources) at GE.

She works as the 'missing link' between the corporate world and the differently-abled and has placed people at organisations such as IBM-Daksh, Pepsi, Genesis PR, TVB Marketing, Impact R&D.

Anubhuti sees economic sense in employing the disabled. “India has over 70 million disabled people. Assuming skilled workers form 10 per cent of this population, that’s still a huge alternative talent pool.”

In recognition of her efforts, she was presented with the Helen Keller Special Award.

From Indian Express - http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Sight-on-jobs/343995/