"Starkey Hearing Foundation" is an organization who with the mission statement: "we are all about bringing understanding between people through caring and sharing. We believe caring develops trust and by sharing we find our humanity. We believe by growing engagement in this cause that we can increase tolerance and respect for life." The people of this organization are very proud to have created a system in which they hand out hearing aids to deaf children worldwide, and started to use an idea called ‘inspiration porn", a created term to describe the use of inspirational pictures or statements to inspire individuals to do something good for the world. However, not only is the use of this word wrong, but the foundations mission statement is not accurate.
Their mindset is based on the idea that a hearing aid is how you ‘fix’ deafness, because it is seen as a "disability." However, they are ignoring the fact, that when we will take those hearing aid off, then we are still Deaf. We deaf people are fully able to fully of function in society, WITHOUT a hearing aid. The Starkey foundation need to learn to see Deaf people, more than their inability to speak or hear.
The "California association of the Deaf ", (CAD) position on the Starkey Foundation, is not anti- hearing aid, but a disagreement on their labeling of ‘inspiration porn’, a term that is really not appropriate for Deaf children. Additionally, the CAD wrote that It is also these people who involved in this job to give free hearing aids, should really inform themselves about the benefits of American Sign Language, and learn how Deaf people who do now have access to their native language often suffer with their identity, and may have issues connecting with hearing individuals.
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