[nfb-db] HKNC

[Marsha Drenth]

Hello Listers, 

For the past year I have lost a significant amount of hearing. Last tested I was at a 100DB loss. I have been totally blind for the last 10 years. as a child I attended a school for the blind. So my blindness skills are good. But now with the loss of my hearing, life has certainly gotten interesting and challenging. I will be the first to say that I have been struggling. Currently I am a full time student at a major university pursuing a degree in Social Work. I have one year left. 

So my questions are this, Has anyone on this list been to HKNC? I know the NFB advocates for a blindness skills training center, but that is NOT what i need. my OVR came to and has recommended that I go to HKNC for training. If you have been, I have a whole slue of questions, that i'll ask at another point. 

What is the NFB's stance on HKNC? This by no means will impact my desicion to go or not to go. I am curious. 

I guess a better reason of why I ask the above questions, is that I have been an NFB member for my entire life, my parents, my grandparents all have been in the NFB. my grandparents were around when the two organizations split. I have grown up with the positive philosophy. I get it, I truely do. But here I have been thrust into the world of deafblindness. Not many people know this yet, as I am working to figure things out, I am only begining to be comfortable with expressing my needs to others. I know that is whole another subject on acceptance, but that is not my point for this post. 

I will relay an experience I had at my last national convention, last year in Dallas. I was in the general session, I got up to go to the bathroom, found my way out fine. Found the bathroom fine. But when I entered the big huge room, I was lost. I asked persons around me where I was. People were rude. i said I can't hear. people made fun of me. I walked around looking for my state for atleast 15 minutes. I was frustrated, I didn't know which way was to the front or the back of the room or the way to get out. 

I tell you all this, because I realized that my ability to hear, my independence was changing. There were other times that I got lost, but people were so rude, so mean. When I expressed that I was hard of hearing and totally blind, people did not understand, care, or get it. In other words I was shunned, looked down upon, made fun of. 

Why can't people in the NFB accept persons who are different? Why are us who are deafblind looked down upon? And if confirmed, its just because our blindness skills are lacking. That is not the case. 

So do the NFB people look down upon those who go to HKNC? Is there a difference in training philosophy? Again I said this won't change my desision to go for training or not. more curious than anything. 

Look folks I don't want to argue about this, but I do want answers. 

Thank you for reading, and sorry this is so long.... 

Marsha drenth  
Sent with my IPhone