ORANJESTAD –Defending the rights of people that have Hearing Impairments and Deafness ,providing in their necessities, giving them advice and guidance, education, information and social help, that is the goal of the foundation for people with Hearing Impairments and Deafness, abbreviated FEDAA.
Stella B. Monsanto is President of the foundation that started April 11, 2013. “With support of Rotary Club Rijswijk Ypenburg from the Netherlands I founded FEDAA five years ago. We are four board members in total, all volunteers that dedicate their time and love to the foundation.” Problems that people with hearing loss encounter in the island are: communication problems, discrimination, social problems, work related problems, crime, and economic problems and so on. When a person loses his hearing abilities -partly or complete- it is most important to support them and their family, work environment and others of their inner circle how to cope with this in daily life.
Discrimination
Hearing disabilities are not visible to the majority of people, the community often does not take this group into consideration. For that they face a lot of obstacles in their personal development and in their participation of society. The obstacles to be part of the community are numerous and many times they experience discrimination. There is few information within our community about people with hearing loss, even their own families and friends often lack the necessary knowledge. FEDAA wishes to form a bridge to facilitate participation, acceptance and integration for this group of people.
The end goal is to achieve that people with hearing impairments and deafness can obtain an equal position within the community as any other. FEDAA is open to every baby, child, youngster and adult facing hearing disabilities to offer the best guidance possible.
The past five years the foundation has achieved to serve the group of people with hearing disabilities in the field of work, education, social, workshops, lectures, social activities, courses and so on. The foundation is proud to celebrate their 5 years of existence and they celebrated this together with their members, their families and invites. FEDAA is an independent foundation that operates without governmental support, depending completely on donations.
FEDAA would like to thank all those that supported the foundation in any way as because of your help people with a hearing disability get the opportunity to form part of our community. It is their right, just like for any other citizen of our beautiful island!
In case you would like to support FEDAA or for any questions or need of more information, please visit Facebook page: FEDAA or contact Stella B. Montsanto via Email: stellamontsanto@hotmail.com.
