The International Helen Keller Week – Deafblindness Week

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.” These words belong to Helen Keller, the most famous deafblind person in the world. Despite the fact that she had lost both her sight and her hearing at the early age of 19 months, Helen Keller succeeded in becoming the first deafblind person graduating a university, in 1904. With a support of a very gifted teacher – Anne Sullivan – she learnt English, French, Greek, German and Latin using Braille. Helen Keller wrote many books and articles and she fought for the rights of people with disabilities. She contributed to the opening of many hospitals and centres for blindness prevention all over the world.

In the week of June 27 – July 1 2011, Sense International (Romania) celebrates the International Helen Keller Week, to increase awareness regarding the specific problems that deafblind people must face every day. Deafblindness is a combination of hearing and visual impairments, at various degrees of manifestation that dramatically affects communication, mobility and access to information. Following the awareness campaigns organised by SI(R), deafblindness has been recognised by the Romanian legislation as a distinct disability since 2006.

Since 2001, Sense International (Romania) has been working in partnership with others – deafblind people, their families, carers and professional – to ensure that everyone facing challenges because of deafblindness has access to advice, opportunities and support.
Through the first ever Early Intervention Programme dedicated to newborn babies, SI(R) has opened the gates to hearing and vision screening at birth, so that babies have a fantastic chance of professional diagnosis and adequate rehabilitation programmes. More than 27,000 babies have had their hearing and/or vision screened in Bucharest, Oradea and Timisoara since 2007 and 53 deafblind/multisensory impaired children receive early intervention services provided in 3 Early Intervention Support Centers.

SI(R) is the first and only organisation in Romania to address the issue of Education for Deafblind / Multisensory Impaired Children. Starting from scratch, with no awareness of deafblindness in the country, SI(R) has managed to create a network of 35 classes set up in 15 state special schools for the deaf and the blind in Romania, where 140 deafblind children benefit from good quality education offered by specialists whose expertise is highly appreciated. 

With the support of our partners – the Early Intervention Support Centres in Bucharest, Oradea and Timisoara, as well as “Vasile Pavelcu” School Iași, Sense International (Romania) will organise on this occasion a series of activities for deafblind children and their families. Educational and relaxation activities will be organised to emphasise the importance of become more aware of this unique disability and to get closer to our vision – a world where all deafblind children and adults can become active members of the society.