Voice of Empowerment

Hi, I am Arnab Kumar Bhattacharya. A hard of hearing person from Kolkata.

I am sharing my, a brief story with you.

At the years of 1 years six months, I fell down from high place.

That time, parents did not find any unusual thing.

But later on they realized that I have a hearing problem, they approached ENT specialist, and the news about my profound hearing loss is confirmed.

I started to use hearing aids for the first time in my life, that time i was five years old.

That time my speech was not clear.

Education was a big question for my life that time.

Instead of giving up, my parents stood for me, especially my mother, supported me a lot.

She taught me how to use hearing aids, how to follow the lip reading, how to improve the communication, how to enhance the literacy, numerical, language, communication skill, so that I can succeed in mainstream education.

By virtue of sheer determination and their support, I completed school in HARE school.

Completed the graduation from St Xaviers college, then I moved to Delhi to pursue higher studies.

I did MBA in Advertising and Public Relations.

Post qualification, I started to work with many NGOs and academic institutes, in different capacities.

At present I am working with Anwesha Kolkata, as a coordinator for fundraising as well as communication.

I am passionate about marathon running, cycling, storytelling and interacting with a lot of people.

Looking at my experience I would like to share few things with you.
You know, as a deaf person, we can do everything except hearing.

Believe me, in India, out of 10 deaf children, 9 children are born to hearing parents.

They are totally clueless about the right pathways for their deaf children.

Having communication issues should not block the child’s development.

Parents should make an informed choice, whether their deaf children will follow the Oral-aural method or Indian Sign Language method or both together.

And all methods complement to each other and that really empowers the child, you know, to do well in their lives.

At Anwesha I’m taking care of Resource mobilization and Communication department. At the same time I’m also involved in awareness as well as advocacy campaigns.

Every year, I used to talk about hearing care on World Hearing day and on last week of September I used to talk about the rights and entitlements of deaf people, as a part of celebration of International Week for the deaf people.

My sincere request to the parents of the deaf children is that they should not give up the effort, should stand for their deaf children, so that they can be contributing citizens like me.

See you soon

Yes see you soon.

See you

Yes see you, Bye Arnab.