Are women safe in India? |
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We ask
if the country's existing laws and the attitude of law enforcers are serving
to compound or prevent sexual abuse.
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The gang-rape of a medical student on a moving bus last week in New Delhi
has triggered mass protests on the streets of India, with calls for change
and justice for a young woman. She was raped for about an hour and thrown out of the bus. She is recovering in the intensive care unit after undergoing multiple surgeries. Her injuries were so bad that she was only recently able to give a statement to the Indian authorities. The 23-year-old told police six men took turns sexually assaulting her. The suspects allegedly used a metal rod to assault the victim and her friend.
So, just how widespread a problem is sexual abuse against women in India? There are reports that suggest that in India, a woman is raped every 20 minutes. More than 24,000 rape cases in the country were reported last year alone, of which 570 were reported in the Indian capital, where already this year 635 rape cases have been registered. The legal news service Trust Law says India is the worst country in the G20 to be a woman. It says women and girls continue to be sold, married off at a young age, exploited and abused as domestic slaves. The number of crimes recorded against women, including kidnapping, abduction, and human trafficking exceeds 2.5 million. Many activists say Indians are protesting against what they say is a culture of impunity. There are 40,000 pending rape cases in the country and survivors have to wait years for their cases to be heard – even then the conviction rate is just 34.6 percent – according to the National Crimes Record Bureau.
Undercover reporters in India gathered evidence of how the police in the Delhi region view rape survivors. The investigation published by the Indian weekly Tehelka exposed how the system often blames the survivors. Senior police officers were caught on hidden camera talking about survivors, saying: "She asked for it”; "It's all about money"; "They have made it a business"; "It's consensual most of the time". Seventeen officers in over a dozen police stations were caught on spy cameras blaming everything from revealing clothes to having boyfriends or going to pubs as the main reasons for rape. The investigators came to the conclusion that the officers encountered do not fulfil the basic standard of policing, which requires investigating a case without any cultural, class or gender bias. In this episode, Inside Story discusses if women are safe in India. Joining the discussion, with presenter Hazem Sika, are guests: Kavita Krishnan, the secretary of the All-India Progressive Women's Association; Rajeev Aswathi, a New Delhi high court lawyer who has previously represented rape survivors; and Lawrence Saez, a professor of political economy at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the author of New Dimensions of Politics in India: The United Progressive Alliance in Power.
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Showing posts with label christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label christmas. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Are women safe in India?
Monday, December 24, 2012
#26Acts of kindness: San Antonio third-graders rack up 115 good deeds
After covering the tragedy in Newtown, Conn., NBC News’ Ann Curry wondered what could be done to ease the national suffering over the loss of 26 children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary. Why not, she tweeted, commit to doing one act of kindness for every child killed there? People responded — and wanted to up that to 26 acts of kindness for every child and adult lost at the school. Now people around the country are committing random acts of kindness — connected through the hashtag #26Acts (#20Acts and others are also trending). Get inspired: You can start your own acts of kindness right now.
Like many school teachers across the country, Susan Garcia was nervous. On the Monday after the unthinkable school massacre in Connecticut, how would she handle the inevitable tears and questions from her third-grade students? What could she possibly say?
Then she saw a tweet from NBC News’ Ann Curry. The tweet mentioned the idea of doing 26 acts of kindness in response to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Garcia thought, “That’s it!”
“I knew this could be a way to spread positivity at our school and honor those victims,” said Garcia, 44, a teacher at Thomas L. Hatchett, Sr. Elementary School in San Antonio, Texas.
She sat down with her 8- and 9-year-old pupils on Monday and floated the idea of doing random acts of kindness throughout the week.
“They ran with it,” Garcia said. “They are SO excited.”
The kids enthusiastically began dreaming up thoughtful deeds they could do for teachers, students, school administrators, custodians, parents, siblings and others. Their ideas included:
- Give someone a hug.
- Give someone a smile.
- Meet someone new at recess and play together.
- Make Christmas cards for parents, teachers, custodians and others.
- Pick up some trash.
- Take someone’s tray for them at lunch.
By the end of this week, Garcia’s class collectively completed 115 acts of kindness.
“They want to keep doing this in January after we come back from (winter) break,” Garcia said. “I told them, ‘We don’t have to stop! We can definitely keep doing it if we want!’
“We were all so shocked and devastated by what happened. This has been a way to turn it into a positive.”
Related stories:
- #26Acts of kindness you can do right now
- Inspired to act: #26Acts of kindness to honor those lost in Newtown, Conn.
- 'If you do good, you'll feel good': Ann Curry explains origins of #26Acts of Kindness
- Inspired to spread the word, man's #26Acts Facebook effort goes viral
- #26Acts of kindness: Nebraska woman spreads good will one dollar at a time
Friday, December 7, 2012
Canadian Coyotes....?
Romanians suspected of smuggling Gypsies into Canada through Mexico, US
by Associated Press,
Over the past year, cars loaded with ethnic Roma asylum seekers have run the border between Derby Line, Vermont and Stanstead, Quebec. The border crossing was previously all-but-non-existent before 9/11. The once-open streets between Vermont and Quebec have now have become the preferred route into Canada for refugees who carry Romanian passports. Only recently has Canada beefed up security in Stanstead.
Kenney declined to identify their ethnicity but said the groups of Romanian nationals illegally crossed into Canada between February and October.
Kenney said the Romanians would typically spend a few days in Mexico before illegally crossing the U.S. border and then driving north into Quebec, where police would typically hold them until they requested asylum and would be released.
He said many of the Romanians went to Toronto and some to Montreal. Canadian officials said many arrived in indebted to a criminal organization and in some cases engaged in crime to pay back the smuggling debts. Twelve have been charged in unrelated crimes since arriving in Canada.
Kenney noted that Canada has one of the most generous immigration systems in the world but said they won’t tolerate those who abuse that generosity or cheat the system to jump the queue.
“We are sending a strong message to those who are thinking of using the services of criminal human smugglers to sneak their way into Canada - don’t do it,” Kenney said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in California have noticed a spike in Romanian border crossers.
“You don’t normally find people from Romania crossing in El Centro,” said ICE San Diego spokesman Lauren Mack. The agents apprehending them know they are dealing with gypsies. “We have noticed and are aware of an increase in the number of Roma who are being smuggled into the United States and are concerned about it.”
Mack said they are also aware the Romanians are headed to Canada.
Associated Press writer Wilson Ring in Burlington, Vermont contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Syria loads chemical weapons into bombs; military awaits Assad's order
So
far, intelligence sources say, bombs loaded with the components of
sarin haven't yet been loaded onto planes. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski
reports.
The
Syrian military is prepared to use chemical weapons against its own
people and is awaiting final orders from President Bashar Assad, U.S.
officials told NBC News on Wednesday.As recently as Tuesday, officials had said there was as yet no evidence that the process of mixing the "precursor" chemicals had begun. But Wednesday, they said their worst fears had been confirmed: The nerve agents were locked and loaded inside the bombs.
Sarin is an extraordinarily lethal agent. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's forces killed 5,000 Kurds with a single sarin attack on Halabja in 1988.
U.S. officials stressed that as of now, the sarin bombs hadn't been loaded onto planes and that Assad hadn't issued a final order to use them. But if he does, one of the officials said, "there's little the outside world can do to stop it."
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reiterated U.S. warnings to Assad not to use chemical weapons, saying he would be crossing "a red line" if he did so.
Speaking Wednesday at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Clinton said the Syrian government was on the brink of collapse, raising the prospect that "an increasingly desperate Assad regime" might turn to chemical weapons or that the banned weapons could fall into other hands.
Kevin Lamarque / AFP - Getty Images
Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking Wednesday at NATO
headquarters in Brussels, said the fall of Syrian President Bashar
Assad's government was "inevitable."
Aides told NBC News that Clinton was expected next week to officially recognize the main opposition movement, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, with which she is scheduled to meet in Morocco. Britain, France, Turkey and some key Arab leaders have already recognized the opposition.
Fighting intensified Wednesday in the 21-month civil war, which has left 40,000 people dead. The U.N. withdrew its personnel from Damascus, saying conditions were too dangerous.
The government said this week that it wouldn't use chemical weapons on its own people after President Barack Obama warned that doing so would be "totally unacceptable."
<br>
But U.S. officials said this week that the government had
ordered its Chemical Weapons Corps to "be prepared," which Washington
interpreted as a directive to begin bringing together the components
needed to weaponize Syria's chemical stockpiles.That process would involve mixing "precursor" chemicals for the deadly nerve gas sarin, which could be used in artillery shells, U.S. officials told NBC News, stressing that there was no evidence that process had as yet begun.
U.S. officials had long believed that the Syrian government was stockpiling the banned chemical weapons before it acknowledged possessing them this summer.
NBC News reported in July that U.S. intelligence agencies believed that in addition to sarin, Syria had access to tabun, a chemical nerve agent, as well as traditional chemical weapons like mustard gas and hydrogen cyanide.
Officials told NBC News at the time that the Syrian government was moving the outlawed weapons around the country, leaving foreign intelligence agencies unsure where they might end up.
Syria is one of only seven nations that hasn't ratified the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention, the arms control agreement that outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of such weapons.
Bombshells filled with chemicals can be carried by Syrian Air Force fighter-bombers, in particular Sukhoi-22/20, MiG-23 and Sukhoi-24 aircraft. In addition, some reports indicate that unguided short-range Frog-7 artillery rockets may be capable of carrying chemical payloads.
In terms of longer-range delivery systems, Syria has a few dozen SS-21 ballistic missiles with a maximum range of 72 miles; 200 Scud-Bs, with a maximum range of 180 miles; and 60 to 120 Scud-Cs, with a maximum range of 300 miles, all of which are mobile and are capable of carrying chemical weapons, according U.S. intelligence officials.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed President Obama's recent vow to take action if Syrian President Bashar Assad uses chemical weapons during the ongoing clashes within his country. U.S. officials are also concerned about the rising influence of extremist groups within Syria. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Lodi’s Judi Harrison and Emily Paige help deaf children communicate using dolls
http://www.scribd.com/doc/76662039/Lodi%E2%80%99s-Judi-Harrison-and-Emily-Paige-help-deaf-children-communicate-using-Dolls
Evelyn Nelsona, a Larson Elementary School student who had trouble communicated with students and her teacher, makes her first sign to an I Can Sign Doll.
As Judi Harrison thinks back to the young girl who introduced her to sign language, tears flood her eyes. Harrison, a Lodi resident, recalls the girl and her mother visiting the salon where Harrison worked. The girl would touch her own chin and then waver her hand downward as Harrison did the woman’s hair.
Finally, Harrison asked the mother what the girl was doing.
“She is telling you ‘thank you’ in sign language,” the mother said.
Never had Harrison thought that the girl was deaf. Nor did she expect that one interaction would lead her to a new love and passion for helping deaf children.
Touched, Harrison signed up for a sign language class at San Joaquin Delta College in the 1980s. She was hooked. She learned all she could from Denise Reich, the former instructor.
Since then, Harrison’s family has housed a deaf person for five years. They volunteer wherever they can, serving as interpreters and trying to match deaf people with volunteers. Her daughter, Emily Paige, volunteered in Elk Grove at Merryhill teaching the children sign language.
Yet no one in their family is deaf. The little girl who inspired Harrison all those years ago ignited a fire in Harrison’s heart that has fanned out to her daughter, who has in turn taught sign language to her four children.
But that love and knowledge was not enough. Twenty years ago, the duo began a project to create a doll that deaf children could relate to, a doll with malleable hands and fingers so that a child can manipulate the fingers to sign.
“The only dolls out there are closed fisted dolls,” Harrison said.
The I Can Sign dolls, made with parts from the United States, went through many phases, patterns and designs. Materials were tested at Harrison’s home.
“I thought it was going to be easy,” Paige said, laughing. “We tried muslin, cotton, different hair. We wanted it to be sturdy, so the kids can play with it, but also easy to clean.”
They found some fabrics were too stretchy or the leg size was too big or the hair just wasn’t right.
“They are Julia-tested,” she said, refering to her very active 3-year-old daughter.
The dolls, who can wear newborn clothes or clothes in the American Girl doll collection, are customizable to which ear the hearing aid is placed. Children can pick the eye color, the hair color, the sex, baby or bunny.
Emily picked up the boy doll, Preston, with its Justin Beiber-inspired hair-do.
The idea behind the I Can Sign dolls is to “fill a gap for every deaf persons needs, starting at home. It is to remind them that society hasn’t forgotten them — you’re not alone in the house surrounded with the hearing,” Harrison said.
The students can trust the dolls.
“The dolls are good for keeping secrets,” Harrison said. “The dolls fit in with deaf kids and are not intimidating.”
The deaf do not have a word for everything like the hearing do. Instead they use synonyms and read how a person is “talking” with them, whether they are happy or angry, in order to get the meaning.
“I remember signing to a group of students, ‘It’s raining,’ and they asked how I knew. They didn’t realize you can hear the rain fall,” she said.
Harrison became emotional remembering instances like this one.
“I admire them so much,” Harrison said.
Denise Reich: The educator
She hunkered down in her chair at the kidney shaped table. The pre-k and kindergarten classroom looks like any other classroom you may find at Larson Elementary.
“Today we are going to make a red chicken!” Denise Reich said, excitedly. She stressed “red” and “chicken,” repeating the sign in American Sign Language for her pre-schoolers and one kindergartner.
They were excited. They laughed and jumped in their blue chairs. They are just like other young children, except they cannot hear.
The eight students in her class are deaf or hard of hearing. After lunch, Reich put on her microphone transmitted through a FM station. She then calls up each student to put on their hearing aids.
“Aaa. Eee. Ooo. Ccc. Shhhh. Mmmm,” she whispereed into their ears. They repeated each sound and earned a big hug as a sign of a job well done.
Reich is amazed with science and improvements in hearing aids and cochlear implants.
“They used to have to hang big boxes around their necks. Now the devices are so much smaller,” she said.
A cochlear implant is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is deaf or hard of hearing.
In 1987, when Reich came to Lodi to teach the deaf there was not a school for the deaf. Now, she is glad Lodi Unified School District realized the need. When a position was posted for Lawrence Elementary School, she immediately applied. She had been living in Lodi, but commuted to her Modesto teaching job for seven years.
Today, there is a 3-year-old to kindergarten class at Larson. Victor School teaches the first-through fourth-grade students. Houston Elementary School teaches fifth through eighth grades. High school students are taught at Tokay High.
“Now (the deaf) are being cared for throughout instruction,” Reich said.
Reich graduated from the University of the Pacific and then received her master’s in deaf communication at Lewis & Clark University in Portland, Ore. She had hearing loss due to numerous ear infections when she was a child.
As an educator, her goal is for her students to move into mainstream classes.
“There was a time when deaf students thought that at the age of 18, they died or just disappeared. The children didn’t see deaf adults,” she said.
Once, when one of her classes met a deaf adult, she says the students were in shock. Now, she has a deaf Santa come to class during the holidays.
Captioning on television, Blackberries and texting devices have helped parents and students become more involved.
Facebook also helps Reich keep track of her former students.
“It’s so nice to see what they have done in their lives,” she said, adding that some of her students are now in schools such as University of Houston and California State University, Stanislaus.
However, the communication methods differ from family to family.
Of all the families that Reich has worked with, about 20 communicate through signing. Others find the language difficult, which leads to some parents or caregivers giving up.
“Parents quit once they think deafness is a barrier. It holds (the child) back. It’s disappointing,” Reich said. “On the other hand, there are families where even the aunts and uncles sign. Those kids will go far.”
The students have taught Reich to be flexible. Everyone — even deaf students — learn at different speeds, but eventually, they succeed.
“Their only limits are what we put on them,” she said.
For Reich, teaching deaf students is her passion.
“Every day I enjoy coming to school. I am tired when I go home, but I love it,” she said. “This is my 31st year ... I just know that this is my calling.”
Meeting the dolls
Monday morning was like ever other morning in Reich’s classroom. She was finished placing hearing aids in students’ ears when visitors arrived.
Harrison, Paige, and Paige’s daughter, Julia, entered with three dolls in their arms. The children turned in excitement.
Hugs were exchanged between teacher and former student. The class moved to their story-time rug and sat down.
One by one, the children were introduced to the dolls.
Immediately, Zahra Franklin-Villanueva picked up the baby doll. She inspected the hearing aid and pointed to her own. She cradled the baby doll. The two were inseparable.
“See Zahra, just like you,” Reich told her.
Noah Camello played with the boy doll, making him skate along the carpet on black rollerblades. Leysli Villegas-Perez also played with the boy doll, examining his hearing aid. The children touched the fingers, moving them up and down, bending them into signs.
“These are perfect. They love them,” Reich told Harrison. “They don’t have anything like this.”
But perhaps the most successful moment of the morning was when Evelyn Nelson, a new student in the class signed for the first time to the doll. Coming into the class last week, she only knew thumbs up and “no.” Reich had been working with her earlier in the day on signing horse, cat and dog. She would not sign to the teacher or her classmates.
But on Monday, Nelson signed “I love you” to the doll.
For Reich it was overwhelming.
“For her to see the doll and sign ‘I love you’ — she knew exactly that she was supposed to form her hand like the doll. Tonight I will go home and cry,” she said.
For Harrison, it was also an emotional morning.
“Oh my gosh, to have them see and be able to relate ... To see them talking to (the dolls) — that’s what we wanted. The only difference is communication,” she said.
The doll makers gave the children hugs and said goodbye, but left the dolls in the classroom. Tears of happiness filled Harrison’s eyes as she left.
The students returned to the work table, where everyone sang “The wheels on the bus go round and round ...” The doll signed along on Reich’s lap. One by one, each student was called up to help the doll.
The mother-and-daughter duo believe every deaf class should have their dolls nationwide.
Harrison’s goal now is to translate popular reading books into sign books. Parents can learn the language, as well as bond with their child while reading beloved stories.
“Every child deserve to communicate in their own language,” she said.
To contact Jen Howell, email Jenh@lodinews.com.
As Judi Harrison thinks back to the young girl who introduced her to sign language, tears flood her eyes. Harrison, a Lodi resident, recalls the girl and her mother visiting the salon where Harrison worked. The girl would touch her own chin and then waver her hand downward as Harrison did the woman’s hair.
Finally, Harrison asked the mother what the girl was doing.
“She is telling you ‘thank you’ in sign language,” the mother said.
Never had Harrison thought that the girl was deaf. Nor did she expect that one interaction would lead her to a new love and passion for helping deaf children.
Touched, Harrison signed up for a sign language class at San Joaquin Delta College in the 1980s. She was hooked. She learned all she could from Denise Reich, the former instructor.
Since then, Harrison’s family has housed a deaf person for five years. They volunteer wherever they can, serving as interpreters and trying to match deaf people with volunteers. Her daughter, Emily Paige, volunteered in Elk Grove at Merryhill teaching the children sign language.
Yet no one in their family is deaf. The little girl who inspired Harrison all those years ago ignited a fire in Harrison’s heart that has fanned out to her daughter, who has in turn taught sign language to her four children.
But that love and knowledge was not enough. Twenty years ago, the duo began a project to create a doll that deaf children could relate to, a doll with malleable hands and fingers so that a child can manipulate the fingers to sign.
“The only dolls out there are closed fisted dolls,” Harrison said.
The I Can Sign dolls, made with parts from the United States, went through many phases, patterns and designs. Materials were tested at Harrison’s home.
“I thought it was going to be easy,” Paige said, laughing. “We tried muslin, cotton, different hair. We wanted it to be sturdy, so the kids can play with it, but also easy to clean.”
They found some fabrics were too stretchy or the leg size was too big or the hair just wasn’t right.
“They are Julia-tested,” she said, refering to her very active 3-year-old daughter.
The dolls, who can wear newborn clothes or clothes in the American Girl doll collection, are customizable to which ear the hearing aid is placed. Children can pick the eye color, the hair color, the sex, baby or bunny.
Emily picked up the boy doll, Preston, with its Justin Beiber-inspired hair-do.
The idea behind the I Can Sign dolls is to “fill a gap for every deaf persons needs, starting at home. It is to remind them that society hasn’t forgotten them — you’re not alone in the house surrounded with the hearing,” Harrison said.
The students can trust the dolls.
“The dolls are good for keeping secrets,” Harrison said. “The dolls fit in with deaf kids and are not intimidating.”
The deaf do not have a word for everything like the hearing do. Instead they use synonyms and read how a person is “talking” with them, whether they are happy or angry, in order to get the meaning.
“I remember signing to a group of students, ‘It’s raining,’ and they asked how I knew. They didn’t realize you can hear the rain fall,” she said.
Harrison became emotional remembering instances like this one.
“I admire them so much,” Harrison said.
Denise Reich: The educator
She hunkered down in her chair at the kidney shaped table. The pre-k and kindergarten classroom looks like any other classroom you may find at Larson Elementary.
“Today we are going to make a red chicken!” Denise Reich said, excitedly. She stressed “red” and “chicken,” repeating the sign in American Sign Language for her pre-schoolers and one kindergartner.
They were excited. They laughed and jumped in their blue chairs. They are just like other young children, except they cannot hear.
The eight students in her class are deaf or hard of hearing. After lunch, Reich put on her microphone transmitted through a FM station. She then calls up each student to put on their hearing aids.
“Aaa. Eee. Ooo. Ccc. Shhhh. Mmmm,” she whispereed into their ears. They repeated each sound and earned a big hug as a sign of a job well done.
Reich is amazed with science and improvements in hearing aids and cochlear implants.
“They used to have to hang big boxes around their necks. Now the devices are so much smaller,” she said.
A cochlear implant is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is deaf or hard of hearing.
In 1987, when Reich came to Lodi to teach the deaf there was not a school for the deaf. Now, she is glad Lodi Unified School District realized the need. When a position was posted for Lawrence Elementary School, she immediately applied. She had been living in Lodi, but commuted to her Modesto teaching job for seven years.
Today, there is a 3-year-old to kindergarten class at Larson. Victor School teaches the first-through fourth-grade students. Houston Elementary School teaches fifth through eighth grades. High school students are taught at Tokay High.
“Now (the deaf) are being cared for throughout instruction,” Reich said.
Reich graduated from the University of the Pacific and then received her master’s in deaf communication at Lewis & Clark University in Portland, Ore. She had hearing loss due to numerous ear infections when she was a child.
As an educator, her goal is for her students to move into mainstream classes.
“There was a time when deaf students thought that at the age of 18, they died or just disappeared. The children didn’t see deaf adults,” she said.
Once, when one of her classes met a deaf adult, she says the students were in shock. Now, she has a deaf Santa come to class during the holidays.
Captioning on television, Blackberries and texting devices have helped parents and students become more involved.
Facebook also helps Reich keep track of her former students.
“It’s so nice to see what they have done in their lives,” she said, adding that some of her students are now in schools such as University of Houston and California State University, Stanislaus.
However, the communication methods differ from family to family.
Of all the families that Reich has worked with, about 20 communicate through signing. Others find the language difficult, which leads to some parents or caregivers giving up.
“Parents quit once they think deafness is a barrier. It holds (the child) back. It’s disappointing,” Reich said. “On the other hand, there are families where even the aunts and uncles sign. Those kids will go far.”
The students have taught Reich to be flexible. Everyone — even deaf students — learn at different speeds, but eventually, they succeed.
“Their only limits are what we put on them,” she said.
For Reich, teaching deaf students is her passion.
“Every day I enjoy coming to school. I am tired when I go home, but I love it,” she said. “This is my 31st year ... I just know that this is my calling.”
Meeting the dolls
Monday morning was like ever other morning in Reich’s classroom. She was finished placing hearing aids in students’ ears when visitors arrived.
Harrison, Paige, and Paige’s daughter, Julia, entered with three dolls in their arms. The children turned in excitement.
Hugs were exchanged between teacher and former student. The class moved to their story-time rug and sat down.
One by one, the children were introduced to the dolls.
Immediately, Zahra Franklin-Villanueva picked up the baby doll. She inspected the hearing aid and pointed to her own. She cradled the baby doll. The two were inseparable.
“See Zahra, just like you,” Reich told her.
Noah Camello played with the boy doll, making him skate along the carpet on black rollerblades. Leysli Villegas-Perez also played with the boy doll, examining his hearing aid. The children touched the fingers, moving them up and down, bending them into signs.
“These are perfect. They love them,” Reich told Harrison. “They don’t have anything like this.”
But perhaps the most successful moment of the morning was when Evelyn Nelson, a new student in the class signed for the first time to the doll. Coming into the class last week, she only knew thumbs up and “no.” Reich had been working with her earlier in the day on signing horse, cat and dog. She would not sign to the teacher or her classmates.
But on Monday, Nelson signed “I love you” to the doll.
For Reich it was overwhelming.
“For her to see the doll and sign ‘I love you’ — she knew exactly that she was supposed to form her hand like the doll. Tonight I will go home and cry,” she said.
For Harrison, it was also an emotional morning.
“Oh my gosh, to have them see and be able to relate ... To see them talking to (the dolls) — that’s what we wanted. The only difference is communication,” she said.
The doll makers gave the children hugs and said goodbye, but left the dolls in the classroom. Tears of happiness filled Harrison’s eyes as she left.
The students returned to the work table, where everyone sang “The wheels on the bus go round and round ...” The doll signed along on Reich’s lap. One by one, each student was called up to help the doll.
The mother-and-daughter duo believe every deaf class should have their dolls nationwide.
Harrison’s goal now is to translate popular reading books into sign books. Parents can learn the language, as well as bond with their child while reading beloved stories.
“Every child deserve to communicate in their own language,” she said.
To contact Jen Howell, email Jenh@lodinews.com.
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