I notice... I'm wearing two hats now.
One for research, and one for representing the interests of Dovenschap.
I don't really see those two working side by side.
However, I can see from within the deaf community that cooperation with parents isn't going well. It's starting to slowly pick up steam now.
Now there are a few deaf parents, with deaf children, who are starting to act.
I'm putting my trust in them now, I hope they can bring about changes.
I notice, from wearing the third hat I wear, heaving deaf parents and having grown up in the deaf world and being familiar with its structure...
...and in my research as well, that the deaf community is quite closed off. It's a closed community.
If a hearing person joins in, the attitude becomes somewhat uncomfortable, like: okay... But reaching out and working together, that will still need to happen.
Really, and it might be awful to say, it's a good thing that more and more deaf people are going to regular schools...
...because deaf schools in the past 200-250 years have been boarding schools, isolated.
The research very clearly shows that deaf people were completely separated from society.
For a long time they were kept away from each other.
At the age of three, when children turned out to be deaf, they were put away, into a boarding school.
They'd stay there until they were about fifteen to eighteen years old.
Then they would go back home, very unfamiliar with their new situation.
There were no connections with family, they weren't used to being around hearing people.
Society was uncharted terrain to them.
So if they went to work and then came home, they'd only be around other deaf people.
At the deaf club, with deaf sports etc., they'd continue to come together.
There was a strong divide between them and the hearing world.
Now that more and more deaf people are going to regular education and gaining experiences with the hearing world, they're starting to be around more hearing people as well.
But there's also a downside to that: what about deaf culture?
Some say: oh no, deaf culture is disappearing!
But no, I don't expect that to happen. Culture is dynamic.
Culture can't stay the same for a hundred years, we also don't walk in clogs anymore, we don't do that.
So culture changes, people change.
But disappear? No, I think some things will always be typically deaf.
I still see children who are wearing CI's, and there's something to them that I recognize as being typically deaf.
So... But the culture is changing.
I think it's becoming more and more inclusive.
And more cooperative, with input from both sides.
I expect more initiatives to pop up.
But representing Dovenschap's interests is still difficult.
They have no office, no desks, no co-workers and no financial assets.
Absolutely all of it is volunteer work. So... where do you go from there...?
We do really want it, and we see what's going on around us.
If there's anything I can contribute, I do so. But eventually, the people are going to have to do it themselves.