In the morning the participants visited WORLD PIONEER Co., Ltd. As its name shows, it is a pioneering company in employment of persons with hearing impairment and also in development of unique products for persons with hearing impairment.
Lecture material : WORLD PIONEER Co., Ltd
There are 11 employees and 4 of them are deaf or hard of hearing. The participants had an opportunity to hear from Mr. Nakazono, the president, about why and how he started this business. Mr. Nakazono himself acquired hearing impairment midway in his life. Then, one of the employees who is hard of hearing also gave a talk about himself and about various useful tools for communication with persons with hearing impairment. The participants got excited to see them and bought some to show the people in their countries. They could understand that once persons with hearing impairment can “ communicate” and “collect information” they are not different from those who can hear.
PM : Lecture on Deaf Studies Now: Social Model beyond Medical Model
Back to paragraph 1
Skip to submenu
Go back to Global Navigation
by Mr. Yutaka OSUGI,
Associate Professor of Tsukuba University of Technology
In the afternoon the participants returned to JICA Tokyo. Mr. Osugi, the afternoon’s lecturer himself has a hearing impairment. In prior to the current position as an associate professor of Tsukuba University of Technology, Mr. Osugi had worked in a Japanese Federation of the Deaf for 6 years including as a Secretary General. During the lecture Mr. Osugi frequently asked the participants to share the situation in their countries.
From his comprehensive lecture, the participants could understnad various topics such as medical model and social model, information access and communication access etc.
All day today, there were sign language interpreters. The participants could also understand the importance of sign language interpreters and of securing the information and communication access of persons with hearing impairment.
