The U.S. government provides grant options for governments, organizations, and businesses. According to an email from USAGov, “The federal government typically awards grants to state and local governments, universities, researchers, law enforcement, and institutions planning major projects that will benefit specific parts of the country or a community as a whole.”
The federal website www.grants.gov, provides information about the government’s more than 1,000 programs. Many grants do support initiatives to benefit individuals with disabilities.
Grant writing is a process and grants often have a structure that is different from what many people would expect. If you’re in Texas and would like to receive grant writing instruction for your organization or business, A Circle of 10, Inc. provides intensive paid workshops.
The GrantsGov website cautions that if you receive an email saying that you qualify for a free grant, it may be a scam. The Federal Trade Commission has information on their website and in their newsletter that will help you avoid all types of scams that the agency encounters.
The Federal Trade Commission has shared a link where you can verify if your security has been compromised in an Equifax breach. Equifax is a credit reporting agency. According to the commission, a settlement that was reached with Equifax and others “alleged that the credit reporting company’s failure to take reasonable steps to secure its network led to a data breach in 2017 that affected approximately 147 million people.”
Was your personal information compromised?
To learn if your information was compromised and is in danger of potential identify theft, conduct a search here.
The form requests some information to verify your identity.
What to do if your information is at risk
If your personal information was included in the breach, you have several options, including free credit monitoring by three agencies for six years, and an additional protection for four years from Equifax, totaling 10 years of protection. This service is normally $19.95 a month. It will notify you when someone uses your personal information for loans, credit, or large purchases.
Additionally, if the security breach has caused you time or money, you may be entitled to some financial compensation, but they will request documentation.
How all Americans will benefit from this
In 2020, Equifax will provide up to six free credit reports a year for seven years for all Americans, according to the commission.
How did this happen?
In the settlement of Federal Trade Commission v. Equifax Inc, Apache Struts was part of Equifax’s database portal that stores the information for millions of Americans. In March of 2017, “the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team alerted [Equifax] to a new critical security vulnerability found in Apache Struts, an open source framework used to build Java web applications.”
According to the settlement, the Equifax employee who needed the information didn’t receive the email notification about the vulnerability. Though Equifax made efforts to locate the vulnerability, further mistakes were made, which led to their alleged failure to “notice or remediate the unpatched” database. This vulnerability allowed hackers to penetrate deep into the database.
Get your free, annual credit report from three agencies
Federal law provides that all American are eligible to receive one free credit report a year from each of the credit reporting agencies, which includes TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. Request yours.
Learn about scams and security updates as they happen
The office of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced the appointment of Detective Eva Storey to the Texas State Independent Living Council. Storey is the CEO and President of Sign Shares, Inc. and the Founder of The Capsule Group, Inc. Her term is until June 20, 2022.
Detective Eva Storey
“It is an honor to be appointed by Governor Greg Abbott to serve within the State Independent Living Council of Texas,” Storey said. “I will respectfully advocate for individuals of disability, creating accessibility between their choice of educational, employment, medical, and legal providers, for all to engage on positive platforms of understanding and acknowledge one another through effective communication.”
The Texas State Independent Living Council, or the Texas SILC, has a mission to “ensure that all Texans with disabilities have access to quality Independent Living services by providing a framework for service delivery.” This is done via the Independent Living Movement principles of peer support, self-help, self-determination, equality, and positive systemic change.
Within that mission, the Texas SILC develops the State Plan for Independent Living in conjunction with the state’s Centers for Independent Living. The three-year plan “establishes the goals for the provision of Independent Living services in Texas.” The SILC also monitors the implementation and effectiveness of the plan and collects input from across the state via meetings, events, and town halls.
Texas SILC meetings and events are listed at the organization’s website at https://www.txsilc.org/.
Storey will provide unique input to the SILC regarding the needs of Texans with all abilities, including those who have mobility, communication access, accommodations, and other needs.
This is the second time that Storey’s advocacy has been recognized by Gov. Abbott. In 2015, Storey was the CEO of Sign Shares, Inc. when it won the state’s 2015 Lex Frieden Small Employer Employment Award.
The Office of the Governor promotes disability inclusion through the Governor’s Committee on People with Disabilities.
According to a bulletin from the Office of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, the Governor’s Committee on People with Disabilities is calling for art entries for the
National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM) Poster Art competition. Entries must be submitted by May 31, 2017.
Above are examples of previous poster contest winners. Use the link below to learn more about the artists and their work.
The winning artist gets statewide recognition when the committee releases free copies of the winner’s art on posters to businesses across Texas.
“The winning artwork is incorporated into the Texas HireAbility Campaign #TXHireAbility,” according to the press release.
In 2016, the committee distributed 2,500 posters.
Submissions
Submissions from Texas artists with disabilities can be sent to the committee via email at GCPD@gov.texas.gov with a photo attachment of the original work in a high resolution digital format, either JPEG or PDF.
They also accept color photocopies, or images on a CD sent by postal mail. The original artwork does not need to be submitted unless it wins the competition. It is free to enter.
All entries must be accompanied by a signed Entry Form, which is available on our website along with the Submission Guidelines.
Due date
Entries must be received by email or postmarked by May 31, 2017. The winner will be announced by June 21.
Artist Recognition
Besides having their art on a poster that is distributed across the state, the original art and the poster will be placed on display in the Office of the Governor’s Committee on People with Disabilities, as well as at other exhibits.
The winning artist may opt to be a featured guest at the annual Lex Frieden Employment Awards ceremony this October. Sign Shares, Inc./International won a Lex Frieden award for its support and inclusion of employees with disabilities.
Spread the love for inclusion
Join Sign Shares in ensuring that your office provides access an inclusion in the workplace. If you have an employee who needs sign language or foreign language services, request language services with Sign Shares.
Kolb was born profoundly deaf and knows sign language.
She said, “I could have chosen to use sign language today instead and that would have been a perfectly viable choice. But for me, the answer was 18 years of speech therapy.”
Kolb tells the story of a presentation she gave to her middle school history class.
Days after the presentation, she said the teacher’s feedback was: “You should never speak like that in front of a group without an interpreter. It is not fair to anyone who has to listen to you.”
This lack of awareness causes some in the d/Deaf community to shy away from speech, but not Kolb.
She has challenges though, she said, and one of those is social communication with hearing people when she relies solely upon reading lips.
Kolb shares about what her speech therapist told her mother when she was 18 months old–to not limit her.
“I communicate fine face-to-face, but walking into those kinds of group conversations is like watching a world championship ping pong match with ten different people and half a dozen balls,” Kolb said.
In another article, Rachel Kolb’s mother, Irene Kolb, shares about learning what to do about her daughter Rachel’s hearing loss. Irene went to the library and read about hearing loss and communication.
“I learned that the biggest window of opportunity for language acquisition is from birth to three years. We started using signs that same day and within a few months, Rachel was communicating to us with baby signs,” Irene Kolb said.
When cochlear implants were approved by the FDA and their daughter was a candidate, Irene Kolb said, “We chose not to pursue cochlear implant surgery for her because we were sensitive to the message it may send, that she was not okay being deaf. The most profound book I read was Deaf Like Me. With that book, we came to the early realization that Rachel may never learn to hear or speak, even with a cochlear implant, but we could learn to sign.”
Kolb’s father, Bill Kolb, shared a story about how he came to understand deafness through a New Mexico state-sponsored program.
He said, “Then during one visit the individual brought a record that gave me, as a hearing person, an insight to what different levels of hearing loss sounded like. The record repeated a story over and over again, and each time the narrator would drop certain frequencies until the recording lost all frequencies – that is, let me hear what it sounded like to be profoundly deaf. This recording really hit home with me. Going forward, I decided I would learn as much as I could about how to communicate with my precious daughter.”
According the the article, her parents learned sign language over lunch where they worked and took continuing education sign language classes. Their daughter Rachel studied at Deaf, mainstream, and private schools—an environment that may have helped her develop an appreciation of diverse communication.
“Having a family that signed and that worked to provide language access for me gave me a sense of confidence in myself, even when things got challenging,” Kolb said.
While she doesn’t have a choice over everything, Kolb says, she does have a choice over how to use her abilities, which include sign language and English.
She signed, “As someone who understands the different forms communication can take, from spoken to sign language, I understand the value of flexibility in transmitting ideas. I see well-rounded, effective communication as essential to ideas, creativity and progress.”
In an article she wrote for the New York Times, Kolb illustrated the d/Deaf communication dilemma. She said, “While talking to a hearing person at a noisy party, I inevitably reach the point when I want to stop, switch off my cumbersome voice, and let my hands fly.”
“The general advantages of sign are numerous: not only talking through overwhelming noise, but chatting to friends from various distances, or through barriers like doors or windows. Sign, too, possesses a vibrant visual-spatial orientation and a robust directness of expression that spoken languages lack,” she said.
Kolb uses a party example to illustrate how people who don’t know sign language may have a limited ability: “…when faced with a noisy party filled with signing-impaired people, I sometimes marvel, instead, at the skill my eyes and my hands possess.”
She said people who are hearing note her ability to visually navigate a loud environment where hearing people have difficulty too. They’ve commented that it would be preferable to use sign and she encourages them to learn.
When people do learn sign language, she said it helps people to grow. “It is the human desire to communicate – which always strains to break out of presupposed categories, always insists upon its own flexibility and power.”
Communication is unique to the person and situation, to their education and experiences, but it’s valuable to embrace flexibility in communication with others, regardless of ability.
Singer, songwriter, and musician Zoë Nutt recently released a song, “Like You,” telling the story of her progressive hearing loss.
At the beginning of the Tennessee native’s open captioned official video, Nutt says, “I lost all of my hearing in my right ear. I now have progressive hearing loss in my left ear. Along with tinnitus, which is this high-pitched ringing that’s just there all the time.’
“That change in my life led me to write a song addressed to my children—whenever I have those children. And it basically says that no one will ever sound like you. Even if I can’t hear you…no one will ever be just the same.”
Screenshot of Zoë Nutt’s video, “Like You.”
According to an HLAA report, Nutt says, “But releasing this music video has been more than just a letter to a possible future. It’s most importantly the start of a conversation I’ve been longing to have with others. I am going deaf, but I will not let it stop me from making music.”
The song’s lyrics describe beauty and meaning beyond sound: “I won’t ever hear you say you love me / I’ll never know whether you can sing. / But I can’t wait to watch your lips speak wonders / ‘cause no one else will ever sound like you.”
According to a review from Vents Magazine,”Nutt’s very deliberate vocal style never clashes with her effortless ability to convey sensitivity in every line. Like You, as a whole, is more than just one of the year’s best full length debuts. Instead, it heralds the arrival of a major new voice who will only follow an upward trajectory from here.”
On July 16, 1969, the United States’ Apollo 11 landed on the moon.
How would people travel through space without spending most of their time sick? Deaf research participants would be key to finding the answers.
Media has recently acknowledged G-11’s efforts, which for many decades went unrecognized.
The Apollo 11 flight may never have been possible if it hadn’t been for the contributions of 11 Deaf men who were Gallaudet College (now University) alumni.
From 1958-1968, and ending the year before men would land on the moon, 11 Deaf men volunteered to participate in a joint research program with the U.S. Naval School of Aviation Medicine and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, according to an article in Knowridge Science Report.
Since they were Gallaudet alumni, they were called the Gallaudet Eleven, or G-11.
All but one of G-11’s members had become deaf early in their lives due to spinal meningitis, which damaged their inner ears in a way that prevented them from getting motion sickness. As far as space travel was concerned, motion sickness was a serious concern.
G-11 members took part in a variety of activities, including flying in airplanes performing parabolic arcs that created weightlessness, rough seas experiments, spinning room experiments, and more.
Did the experiments hurt?
According to a NASA article, participants didn’t get sick.
Researchers expected G-11 participants to not get sick, but they needed to understand how that happened.
“The only discomfort was in the pullouts after steep dives when we experienced from 4 to 6 G—if you tried to lift your arms, they weighed a ton,” said G-11 participant Robert Greenmun.
According to the G-11’s timeline, Greenmun never got sick, but had to nurse hearing Navy aides.
G-11: the envy of astronauts and doctors
Space wasn’t comfortable for people who could hear.
Even Earth’s Atlantic Ocean challenged hearing doctors, when Deaf volunteers didn’t get motion sickness on the rough ocean, but their doctors became sick and had to cancel the tests, according to the timeline.
G-11 members enjoyed their participation and the challenges they faced.
“We always looked forward to seeing new experiments. It was an adventure for us,” said G-11 participant Harry Larson.
Larson had poor balance due to deafness from spinal meningitis, as did 9 other G-11 participants.
When being different makes the difference
The experiments helped improve the understanding of how our senses work normal cues for the ear aren’t there, as is the case with weightlessness, during gravitational forces, and at sea.
“We were different in a way they needed,” said Harry Larson, one of the volunteer test subjects.
G-11: NASA’s secret sauce
According to a WJLA report, Harry Larson said, “We were the only Deaf group to ever be involved in the history of the space program.”
Russia and the Untied States had competed to see which country would have a man set foot on the moon first.
Since Russia’s second cosmonaut got sick during flight, G-11 may have contributed to the the American program’s ability to land people on the moon before its Russian competitor, according to the report.
59 years ago and counting
Today, only five of the 11 test subjects are still alive.
2018 will celebrate 60 years since the G-11’s historic contribution to the U.S. Space program.
The Gallaudet Eleven’s roster:
Harold Domich
Robert Greenmun
Barron Gulak
Raymond Harper
Jerald Jordan
Harry Larson
David Myers
Donald Peterson
Raymond Piper
Alvin Steele
John Zakutney
From space history to museums
Some of G-11’s participants share their story in sign language.
Three of the 11 former study participants attended the exhibit’s opening: Harry O. Larson, Gallaudet class of ’61, Barron Gulak, class of ’62, and David O. Myers, class of ’61.
Two groups have created a variety of useful materials about communication disorders that are free to use and distribute.
To raise awareness about communication disorders, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association observe Better Hearing and Speech Month each May.
This month, they are holding a social media contest and providing an inforgraphic and a quiz about hearing loss, as well as other communication disorder information in press releases, information sheets, posters, and more.
According to the institute’s website, 48 million Americans have a form of communication disorder, while 37.5 million of us have hearing loss–that’s 15 percent of Americans.
Currently, the institute supports research for promoting accessible health care and urges people who think they have hearing loss to have their hearing tested.
Since only 25 percent of Americans who could benefit from hearing aids have used them, there are potentially people who might want them who haven’t had access to them, or who may need them for safety or work-related issues.
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association is promoting a social media contest to raise awareness. The association will award points for sharing information on social media and issue prizes for those earning the most points. Prizes will include Amazon gift cards and association promotional materials.
Learn what people with communication disorders, audiologists, speech-language pathologists are doing to raise awareness on this interactive, international map.
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) allows people with disabilities the right to go to court if they can’t find satisfaction regarding their civil rights under this law and other disability rights laws.
Will Congress reduce the power of one of its greatest laws? photo credit: docoverachiever VOTE via photopin(license)
However, a new Congressional Bill, H.R. 620, seeks to change the way people with disabilities may seek redress, or resolutions, to the inaccessible world they encounter. You can read the bill here.
According to a newsletter from the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, the bill will take away some rights that now exist under the ADA.
According to bill H.R. 620, it is designed “to amend the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 to promote compliance through education, to clarify the requirements for demand letters, to provide for a notice and cure period before the commencement of a private civil action, and for other purposes.”
The fund opposes the bill. “We must counter the business lobby, which wants to make it much more difficult to attain accessibility when businesses such as stores, restaurants, hotels, etc. disregard their ADA responsibilities,” according to the fund’s newsletter.
Stairs are an example of an architectural barrier for someone who uses a wheelchair, scooter, or cane. But what if they block access to a doctor, lawyer, or school? (license)
Two problems in particular will affect people whose rights are violated under the ADA under H.R. 620, and according to the newsletter, it:
“Requires a person with a disability who encounters an access barrier to send a letter detailing the exact ADA provisions that are being violated;” and
“Rewards non-compliance by allowing businesses generous additional timelines, even though the ADA’s reasonable requirements are already over 25 years old!”
How many actions must a U.S. citizen take before they can bring an action to court? (license)
If a person with a disability encounters an architectural barrier, according to the bill, they must do three things before they can take civil action:
“Provide to the owner or operator of the accommodation a written notice specific enough to allow such owner or operator to identify the barrier;” and
“Specify in detail the circumstances under which an individual was actually denied access to a public accommodation, including the address of property, the specific sections of the Americans with Disabilities Act alleged to have been violated, whether a request for assistance in removing an architectural barrier to access was made,” and
Specify “whether the barrier to access was a permanent or temporary barrier.”
The amendment language also calls for the creation of a “model program with … an expedited method for determining the relevant facts related to such barriers to access and steps taken before the commencement of litigation to resolve any issues related to access.”
H.R. 620 seems to contradict the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Since lawsuits allow U.S. citizens to “petition the government for a redress of grievances,” or for a remedy for their problems, then requiring people with disabilities to take additional steps before they can bring a lawsuit would hinder that freedom and cause them to have an additional burden unlike other U.S. citizens.
The fund recommends that individuals let their representatives in Congress know if they don’t wish the ADA to be limited by the amendments that H.R. 620 brings.
To find out who your state’s representatives are, you can type your Zip Code in at https://contactingcongress.org. Contacts include phone numbers, emails, and social media of your representatives.
U.S. legislators will vote whether amendments are made to limit the ADA. (license)
You may also contact your legislators via phone by calling the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. You may ask them to help you locate your representatives if you don’t know them.
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