HearandSay1

An Initiative of the ERN

The Oceania Province of the Christian Brothers outreaches in the fields of education, social welfare and health to the marginalised, mainly youth, in all societies. The Province stretches from the Philippines, through the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand.

One of the projects supported by the ER Network in the Philippines involves administrative support of 26 schools in Negros Occidental and Southern Leyte. They also run “out of school” programmes for youth who have left school as well as for young people who have never had the opportunity of an education.

In the course of their work, they discovered that some children who had been abandoned because they were regarded as "mentally challenged", were in fact, deaf and had never learned to speak from birth. At present the brothers are helping support thirty of these children in an orphanage and at school.

The Hear and Say Programme in Australia was developed by Dimity Dornan AM, founder and managing director of the Hear and Say Centre in Brisbane. The programme has revolutionised treatment for the deaf, where children, if diagnosed early enough and provided with modern hearing aids and are put into appropriate learning classes, will obtain normal speech. Dimity Dornan and Ron Ure are volunteer members of the Development Team in the Oceania Province and together with the Brothers, have worked tirelessly to bring about the success of this initiative.

To advance the progress of this programme in the Philippines, the Brothers have joined together with the Hear and Say Centre in the Philippines to bring two teachers and two nurses to Brisbane to undertake training in Levels 0, 1 and 2 of the Hear and Say Programme. The teachers are already working in schools with the deaf but need to undertake this higher training to help further the learning of the children already enrolled and any referred to the schools in the future.

 The teachers were selected by the head of mission in Kabankalan, Br Rod Ellyard, to undergo the training. They are Miladdie Chia and Jewel Gay D Suyod. The nurses have been selected from the Lorenzo Zayco Public Hospital in Kabankalan by the Administrator, Dr Clauds Pabillo. They are Ruby Siguero and Aniceta Sison and they will be trained to carry out newborn screening to detect at birth those with hearing difficulties and prepare them for the learning programme.

The Hear and Say worldwide course participants have been working closely with Hear and Say staff and the Edmund Rice Foundation to build on the already great work occurring at Anawim school for the deaf in Kabankalan, Negros Occidental. The Filipino team in partnership with Hear and Say,

Edmund Rice Foundation and Nudgee College have already raised funds, delivered equipment and trained staff in the development of a hearing health model for the children of the region.

This project, besides helping the deaf and hearing impaired, also advances the education of women in a developing country, achieving an immediate and perceivable result. The programme will be implemented first in Kabankalan and if it is successful, will spread further, using these trained staff and others to be trained in the future.