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The Global Foundation for Children with Hearing Loss, in partnership with the Thuan An Center in Vietnam, has launched an initiative to establish a teacher training workshop for Vietnamese teachers of the deaf. This workshop will be held on-site at Thuan An for three consecutive summers starting in 2010, and could eventually expand into a larger certificate degree program.

There are over 180,000 children with hearing loss in Vietnam. The government only recently began providing these children with necessary resources they need to develop language and education. All children develop their acumen for language in the first six years of life.  Because the ability to hear sound directly affects language acquisition, it is essential that children with hearing loss receive quality hearing aids and have access to expert teachers during this critical stage of development. 

In Vietnam, hearing aids are in limited supply and less than 20% of the teachers are formally trained to help these children develop language.  Without language, education is difficult to come by.  Without quality education, job prospects are dim.  As a result, many Vietnamese deaf and hard-of-hearing children are unable to achieve the fullest potential as human beings and end up dependent on society for support.  

The Global Foundation and the Thuan An Center is working to address this. They have collaborated to develop a teacher training program that will bring ten American experts in audiology, speech language, and auditory-verbal education to Vietnam to mentor 80 Vietnamese teachers of the deaf during a one-month intensive workshop. Since one teacher works with 10 children, a single workshop will directly impact the education potential of 800 Vietnamese children.  That is 800 children that could be set on a course for a better life.  Because the teachers who attend the workshop will share their learning with other teachers, these benefits are exponential. 
 
The Global Foundation is raising $140,000 to fund the first Vietnam workshop. The Lions Club in Seattle has pledged support and the Global Foundation continues to seek contributions from other service clubs, grant organizations, foundations, and private donors.  To learn more about this project, please visit www.childrenwithhearingloss.org or contact Founder/Executive Director Paige Stringer at paige@childrenwithhearingloss.org. 

About the Global Foundation for Children with Hearing Loss
The Global Foundation for Children with Hearing Loss is a 501c3 nonprofit organization based in Seattle, Washington. Its mission is to make a direct and lasting impact on the futures of thousands of deaf and hard-of-hearing children around the world by providing them with access to the technology, education, and resources they need to become contributing members of society.