Sunday, 8 March, dawned bright and clear, as a crowd of 300 gathered at SADeaf to take part in the ERA Charity Walk 2015. Our long-time Ambassador for the Deaf, ERA Realty Network Pte Ltd, had organised this fundraising event for the third time. The participants consisted of ERA staff and agents, as well as our Deaf clients and students from the Singapore School for the Deaf.
SADeaf Patron, Ms Ho Ching, also turned up to show her support and even walked the entire route with us! SADeaf President Dr Christopher Low and members of the Executive Council were on hand to receive our patron and ambassador. At the end of the walk, which looped around the open space at the Sports Hub, Mr Jack Chua, CEO of ERA, gave a short speech and presented a cheque of $80,000 to us.
We would like to say a heartfelt thank you to the ERA folks for their big hearts, and also wish to extend a warm welcome to ERA, as it had just moved to its new head office at Mountbatten Square beside our premises. Hello, neighbour!
For more photos, browse to our Facebook album.
We had the honour of having Mr Dawei Ni from Austria, who majored in sign linguistics, to present a talk titled ”Sign Language: Communication and Media”at SADeaf’s AVA room on Monday, 9 Feb 2015.
The engaging two-hour talk was attended by 78 participants, including 11 from Malaysia and USA. The topics included the importance of communication in sign language from the linguistic perspective, and how using sign language in various media helps improve accessibility for Deaf people. Dawei had the audience in thrall and laughter throughout with his lively demonstrations of various linguistic concepts.
Thank you, Mr Ni, for the most enlightening presentation which was indeed an eye-opener as well as mind-opener!
For more photos, please browse the Facebook album.
17 January 2015 marked the 2nd Deaf Dialogue organised by SADeaf.
Attended by about 200 members of the community, including Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, SADeaf staff, family members, supporters and professionals in the field, it was held at the Lifelong Learning Institute at Paya Lebar from 2pm to 8pm.
We were glad to have, as our guest of honour, Ms Denise Phua, Mayor, Central Singapore District, who has been a strong and passionate supporter of our community over the years.
With the theme “Our Lives, Our Future”, the Dialogue focussed on various areas of concern to the community – such as communication, accessibility, employment, healthcare, early intervention and education. Representatives from various agencies and institutions such as MOH, BCA, SMU, SG Enable, had the opportunity update the community on current initiatives and programmes, and to take questions from the audience.
More photos of the event can be found here. The report and transcript of the Dialogue will be made available at a later date. Please check our press releases page for updates.