The International Association of Lions Clubs, more commonly known as Lions Clubs International, is an international service organization established in 1917 in Chicago, Illinois, by Melvin Jones. The organization is currently headquartered in Keller, Texas. As of January 2020, it had over 46,000 local clubs and more than 1.4 million members in more than 200 countries and geographic areas around the world.
YWCA USA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating racism, empowering women, and promoting peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all. It is one of the "oldest and largest multicultural organizations promoting solutions to enhance the lives of women, girls and families."
Deaf culture is the set of social beliefs, behaviors, art, literary traditions, history, values, and shared institutions of communities that are influenced by deafness and which use sign languages as the main means of communication. When used as a cultural label especially within the culture, the word deaf is often written with a capital D and referred to as "big D Deaf" in speech and sign. When used as a label for the audiological condition, it is written with a lower case d. Carl G. Croneberg coined the term "Deaf Culture" and he was the first to discuss analogies between Deaf and hearing cultures in his appendices C/D of the 1965 Dictionary of American Sign Language.
The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) is an organization for the promotion of the rights of deaf people in the United States. NAD was founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1880 as a non-profit organization run by Deaf people to advocate for deaf rights, its first president being Robert P. McGregor of Ohio. It includes associations from all 50 states and Washington, DC, and is the US member of the World Federation of the Deaf, which has over 120 national associations of Deaf people as members. It has its headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.
A video relay service (VRS), also sometimes known as a video interpreting service (VIS), is a video telecommunication service that allows deaf, hard-of-hearing, and speech-impaired (D-HOH-SI) individuals to communicate over video telephones and similar technologies with hearing people in real-time, via a sign language interpreter.
Zonta International is an international service organization with the mission of Building a Better World for Women and Girls, in support of Sustainable Development Goal 5.
Sertoma Inc., formerly known as Sertoma International, is an organization of service clubs founded on April 11, 1912. The name is an acronym for Service toMankind. Sertoma has clubs all over the United States and in Canada. Sertoma's primary focus is on assisting the more than 50 million people with hearing health issues and educating the public on the issues surrounding hearing health. In order to achieve these goals, Sertoma has undertaken a multi-faceted approach by launching programs that address both the treatment and prevention aspects of hearing health.
The Philippine Federation of the Deaf, Inc. (PFD) is a non-stock, non-profit organization which caters to the general needs of deaf people in the Philippines.
Kappa Alpha Lambda (ΚΑΛ) is a Greek-lettered organization (GLO)/sorority established for professional lesbians. Founded October 19, 2003, in Atlanta, Georgia, on the campus of Clark Atlanta University. The sorority's mission is to "develop and maintain positive visibility of lesbian women in our communities."
International Center on Deafness and the Arts (ICODA) is a non-profit organization based in Northbrook, Illinois, US. Patricia Scherer is the founder and president. Founded in 1973, the organization is a registered nonprofit, tax exempt, 501(c)(3) corporation.
American Sign Language literature is one of the most important shared cultural experiences in the American deaf community. Literary genres initially developed in residential Deaf institutes, such as American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut, which is where American Sign Language developed as a language in the early 19th century. There are many genres of ASL literature, such as narratives of personal experience, poetry, cinematographic stories, folktales, translated works, original fiction and stories with handshape constraints. Authors of ASL literature use their body as the text of their work, which is visually read and comprehended by their audience viewers. In the early development of ASL literary genres, the works were generally not analyzed as written texts are, but the increased dissemination of ASL literature on video has led to greater analysis of these genres.
The National Black Deaf Advocates (NBDA) is an advocacy organization for thousands of Black deaf and hard of hearing people in the United States. Black Deaf leaders were concerned that deaf and hard-of-hearing African-Americans were not adequately represented in leadership and policy decision-making activities that were affecting their lives.
Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written with a lower case d. It later came to be used in a cultural context to refer to those who primarily communicate through sign language regardless of hearing ability, often capitalized as Deaf and referred to as "big D Deaf" in speech and sign. The two definitions overlap but are not identical, as hearing loss includes cases that are not severe enough to impact spoken language comprehension, while cultural Deafness includes hearing people who use sign language, such as children of deaf adults.
Japanese Sign Language (JSL), also known as Nihon Shuwa, is the unofficial but most predominantly used sign language used by nearly 57,000 native signers as their primary language. It is a convergent, Deaf community sign language developed in the late 19th century.
Deafness in Poland is a topic relevant to education and communities. Poland has a history with DHH people, dating back to 1817. About 15.1% of Polish people in Poland say they have hearing loss. PJM is the main signed language in Poland.
According to The Deaf Unit Cairo, there are approximately 1.2 million deaf and hard of hearing individuals in Egypt aged five and older. Deafness can be detected in certain cases at birth or throughout childhood in terms of communication delays and detecting language deprivation. The primary language used amongst the deaf population in Egypt is Egyptian Sign Language (ESL) and is widely used throughout the community in many environments such as schools, deaf organizations, etc. Ths article focuses on the many different aspects of Egyptian life and the impacts it has on the deaf community.
The Canadian Association of the Deaf estimates that there are over 350,000 Deaf Canadians, but there is not an exact number since there has never been a formal census on Deaf Canadians. There are approximately 1.2 million Indigenous people and over 750 reserves in Canada. There are various intersections of deaf and Indigenous culture, including valuing community, rooting their identity in their culture and its associated group instead of their individuality, having their identities oversimplified, being underrepresented in research and data collection, and experiencing health inequities due to their identities. There is limited research on Deaf Indigenous people, but the Saskatchewan Human Rights Association argues that issues faced by Deaf people are exacerbated when that person is also Indigenous.
The Windward Islands consists of various islands located in the Caribbean Sea such as Dominica, Martinique, Barbados, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Grenada. It contains multiple cultures, beliefs, and languages.
Deafness in Thailand refers to the population and culture of Deaf Hard of Hearing people in Thailand. Deafness in Thailand includes language emergence, organizations, healthcare, employment, schooling, and civil rights.
The Global Coalition of Parents of Children who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (GPODHH) is an international collaboration of parent-led support groups for families with children who are deaf or hard of hearing and provides support, information, and systemic advocacy. GPODHH advocates for the need for families to be active collaborators and partners throughout the development of new programs, services and systems that will impact on the lives of children who are deaf or hard of hearing and their families.
