The De La Salle University-Dasmariñas Junior Marketing Association (DLSU-D JMA) will hold its first outreach event entitled Kapwa: A Glimpse on the Life of the Blind and the Deaf to commemorate Persons with Disabilities (PWD) day.
Every 3rd of December, the United Nations General Assembly celebrates the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD). In its 30th year, the theme is, ‘Transformative solutions for inclusive development: the role of innovation in fueling an accessible and equitable world‘ that aims to raise awareness about disability issues and encourage support for the rights, dignity, and general welfare of people with disabilities.
The main goal of DLSU-D JMA is to encourage people to embrace individuals with disabilities as full members of society. Additionally, this event will also discuss how we can communicate with them through understanding public braille and learning sign languages.
Braille is a tactile code tool that enables visually impaired people to express their thoughts. It is a raised-dot writing system that helps persons with a disability to read and write by touching the dots. Aside from writing and reading, braille is often used as the primary tool of deaf-blind people to communicate with others. In today’s generation, people might think that Braille is not useful anymore because of the modern technology that we have, such as talking computers and electronic books, which makes our life easier to communicate with deaf-blind individuals. However, for some, it is still helpful for their basic literacy, allowing them to easily learn the basics such as spelling, punctuation, and grammar. The United Nations campaign focuses on giving the PWD community the right to live like normal people and treating them equally. For us to achieve this, we should normalize practicing the use of public braille and make them feel no different from us.
Aside from learning how to use public braille, sign language is an effective way to express our feelings to the Deaf community, and knowing how to use it will help us communicate with them smoothly. Aside from that, it has a wide variety of benefits that will help not only the deaf but also those who have different disabilities, such as those who can hear and see but cannot speak. Furthermore, being skilled with it will not just allow us to communicate with the deaf but also gives the opportunity to those who have mutism to express their thoughts and feelings freely.
It’s time for us to wake up to the reality where everyone is acceptable and equal. Be part of our outreach event and experience a different point of view where no one is left behind.
For DLSU-D students, reserve your seats now by registering through this link: https://tinyurl.com/2rfbs5hj and experience a completely different world with JMA on December 14, 2022, from 2pm to 5pm at De La Salle University Dasmariñas CBAA Building Room BBA 203-204.