Celebrate with many Deafblind people worldwide today!
Today, June 27, is a day of global celebration for many Deafblind individuals. This date holds significant importance, but what makes it so important?
June 27, the birthday of Helen Keller, is a day of immense global significance for the Deafblind community. It stands as a beacon of recognition for her contributions, advocacy, and the acknowledgment of her experiences as a Deafblind person.
Representing between 0.2% to 2% of the population, persons with Deafblindness are a very diverse yet hidden group – dated 2018
https://wfdb.eu/deafblindness-in-the-world
‘Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.’ – Helen Keller. This resilience, this ability to overcome, is a testament to the strength and determination of the Deafblind community, inspiring hope and admiration in all of us.
This year, the World Federation of Deafblindness announced the United Nations Convention on the Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ recognition of Deafblindness and accepted to celebrate on June 27 every year. The news brought an excellent celebration for everyone at last this year. Many Deafblind individuals require critical support in their daily lives, highlighting the importance of raising awareness about communicating through Deafblind tactile sign language. This awareness is crucial for the urgent need for support workers or caregivers to assist with daily tasks and provide family members with a break. It also underscores the necessity for ongoing funding to support the use of equipment and services, emphasising the urgency and importance of your involvement. https://wfdeaf.org/un-recognition-of-the-international-day-of-deafblindness/
In New Zealand, the Deafblind population is not significant; it is over 193,000 Kiwis are blind, deafblind, or living with low vision—a number that is projected to soar to 225,000 by 2028. (dated in 2024.) The last record in 2021, “Deafblindness affects around 1500 people in New Zealand. However, with an ageing population, this number is predicted to grow. So it is essential that our general support services – teachers, therapists, doctors, home help services and so on – are all equipped to deal with it. By Hons Ruth Dyson.”
I want to mention something regarding my work and advocacy for a few Deafblind individuals here. There is one person who is a good friend to several Deaf seniors in the Waikato region. I have been supporting and assisting them as a deaf community liaison officer/advocator for a long time. I learnt a bit more and was keen to explore this person and her daughter while researching the projects – Waikato Deaf Society Inc., 1956-2004.
Helen Keller and Polly Thomson took a tour to Japan, Australia and New Zealand in 1948, from July 28 to August 5. They took the opportunity to visit the Van Asch School for the Deaf, Titirangi School for the Deaf and the Wellington Deaf Society during a tour of several cities in New Zealand.
https://www.afb.org/HelenKellerArchive?a=d&d=A-HK01-02-B038-F05-001&srpos=20
https://kotakureo.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/225#idx913
We all must strive to understand and support the Deafblind community. Joyce’s experiences of her childhood and the loss of her eyesight later will be shared with you to learn about Deafblind awareness, the struggle of losing independence and becoming dependent on the community, the need to communicate with family members, caregivers, and Deaf friends, and how today’s technology helps them more than in the past. It’s a call for empathy and understanding, a reminder of the importance of our support for those in need, and a testament to the profound impact our compassion can have on their lives.
I experienced myself between September 2024 and the end of March 2025 by having double glaucoma in both eyes and one cataract in one eye. I had implant lens surgeries in both eyes in April 2025. I am 61 years old. Joyce is older (over eighty-three years old), and her experience may be different from mine, as there was no advanced technology in New Zealand in the past.
Do Joyce and her Deaf friends know or understand who Helen Keller is and why she was famous?
What is the big challenge when losing eyesight?
When you notice something is not right or have trouble seeing around?
Did you receive any help from the support service, and maybe from Deaf Aotearoa?
Many Deaf students in Auckland and Christchurch are unaware of who Helen Keller was in the 1930s. The Principal spoke to the Deaf students about someone coming to visit the school, who is Deafblind. The Deaf students had not been taught about Helen before the visiting day. The Principal explained who Helen Keller is, her disabilities – being deaf and blind, and her communication method, tactile sign language, to many Deaf students. The Deaf students did not fully understand why Helen Keller communicated, felt someone, touched objects and many other things. Joyce understands Helen’s communication through tactile sign language and cannot see the surrounding environment; however, Joyce does not fully understand until she watches many movies later on. Joyce knows about the photo taken on the same day Helen and Polly with the Principal and staff visiting Titirangi School for the Deaf. I have her permission to post the image of the Titirangi School for the Deaf, which features deaf students, including Joyce, alongside Helen Keller and Polly. Joyce can be seen under the yellow arrow and blue arrows.
Joyce’s eyesight began to deteriorate before she was fifty years old, and she did not understand what it meant to lose her eyesight. She was independent around home and working in the community. She got married and had four children. One day, the children and husband noticed something was not right when Joyce began to feel objects and furniture, and she often walked into posts or people in the street. Joyce does not question herself. She gradually became blind at times; however, she now uses a cochlear implant with a microphone, and she did not previously use tactile sign language, a white walking cane, or learn to read Braille. She refused to use these tools as it was her choice. One of her daughters, a physiotherapist, and the staff at the Low Vision clinic tried to encourage Joyce to use a walking cane or read in Braille. Nothing will help her, as she refuses, and this is fine as long as she has a vibrating alarm for the fire alarm and doorbell in the home to assist her needs. Today, Joyce has her daughter, family members, support workers, and a couple of volunteers from Age Concern to accompany her on shopping trips, visits to the cafe, Waikato Hospital, home help, and other outings. Joyce uses New Zealand Sign Language/Gesture signs, as I recall, and questions her in sign language, which many Deaf people used between the 1950s and 1990s. She does not sign much today. In the past, Joyce had no support caregiver, only her family members to check on her. Her eyesight symptom is Retinitis Pigmentosa, and it often runs in the family, but rarely. Helen Keller does not have this symptom; she got scarlet fever/meningitis at the age of nineteen months old, and there were no vaccines or treatments in the old days.
Daughter’s note – They had told her she would be blind by the age of 50, she wasn’t, but she was legally blind with the blind foundation about that age.
It was when I saw her feeling around more when I came back in a visit from the UK, as I lived there 18 years, that I took her to the optometrist and he said yes, she was at the point it was no longer safer to walk out to the supermarket, etc on her own. Plus I took her to an audiologist as her 1-year-old hearing aids were squealing away terribly, and the audiologist said she would qualify for a cochlear implant grant as 2 sensory impacts, deaf and blind. Still, nooone else had has said that, even whoever had done the new hearing aids only one year before, that were squealing, it was because im a nurse and know to act about these things, on my visit back from the uk, my sister who lives here all she had done was take her to get new hearing aids.
And even when I knew to come back at the end of 2018 to be here for her needed hip surgeries, on top of having lost all her vision, my sister had said if she can’t look after herself, she needs to go into permanent care. I came and looked after her myself.
My brother said leave her in her council flat til she needs a rest home. So he didn’t care about the impact of losing her vision on top of being deaf.
So it wasn’t from us noticing that she was losing her vision, she was already told she had retinitis pigmentosa and would progressively lose her vision.
Mum got her cochlear implant because of her decreasing vision in order to her deafness. She qualified for the grant because she was deaf blind
https://www.aao.org/eye-health/diseases/what-is-retinitis-pigmentosa
I was looking through Joyce’s photo album of Titirangi School for the Deaf. I came across another newspaper clipping – Judith Sidwell, who was also deafblind, from Titirangi School for the Deaf. Unfortunately, this newspaper article does not provide the date and years.
“I do not like the world as it is; so I am trying to make it a little more as I want it.” — Helen Keller.
Transcription for Speech. written by Helen Keller about the blindness of society to its problems in 1912
Van Asch School for the Deaf, Sumner, Christchurch. Photo below, and use the link below for more photos. This blog is for educational purposes and raising awareness.
