Remember Helen Keller! – I
June – a month dedicated to people with deafblindness around the world
“The best and most beautiful things in life cannot be seen, not even touched. They must be felt from the heart”. These words belong to Helen Keller, the best known person with deafblindness in the whole world. Every year, in June, the entire world celebrates the International Deafblind Awareness Week. In our country, Sense International (Romania) has organised various activities to mark this international celebration.
As part of the project Sense for Life, implemented by Sense International (Romania) and funded by Orange Foundation through the programme “The World Through Colour and Sound”, over 130 people from Bucharest, Galați and Iași attended various activities, all with the purpose to increase awareness about the specific problems of people with deafblindness in Romania.
Deafblindness is a combination of visual and hearing impairments, with various degrees of manifestation, which dramatically affects communication, access to information, orientation and mobility. Following awareness campains organised by SI(R), deafblindness has been recognised as a distinct disabilitity in Romania ever since 2006.
A very special activity for the group of youngsters and children from the Special School for Children with Hearing Impairments Sfânta Maria from Bucharest was the visit to SENZART, an interactive multimedia installations exhibition organized by the National Museum of Contemporary Art together with the Association Amicii MNAC and Orange Foundation Romania. Children saw, heard, felt and experimented the artworks displayed and attended an unusual workshop – painting in water.
They also made drawings with the theme “How do we see ourselves in 10 years?”, put them in special boxes and burried them in the school yard to be uncovered in 2024. They learned the secret of making perfumes by mixing different aromas and planted many trees and plants in the school yard.
In Galați, children and young people from Paul Popescu Neveanu Professional School, a structure of Emil Gârleanu Special School, accompanied by teachers, parents and grandparents visited the Zoo in Brăila, observing the animals and curiosities in the animal world. They have also organised a Carnaval wearing masks and costumes created by themselves.
In Iași, children and young people from Vasile Pavelcu Technological High School visited Noah’s Arch (a mini-farm especially designed for non-formal educational activities for children). They visited the park, fed the animals and attended a workshop decorating pottery.
You can download the official Press release HERE.