Art for everyone
Peers in the Pier offers fun, therapy
With a huge thank you to the Central Cape Breton Community Health Board, Society of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Nova Scotians will be offering a fun and creative way for hard of hearing people in this region to get together.
The Peers in the Pier Art Therapy project was conceived to combine two of my common interests: my love for painting and the need for people who share common needs to come together to help one another.
People who experience hearing loss have a difficult time coping with the mechanics of their hearing loss, then they must adjust and adapt to external sounds and situations that will further inhibit their ability to hear. On top of this, they must endure the daily frustrations of trying to communicate with family, friends, and other acquaintances who do not have a full understanding of the intricacies of hearing loss and its physical and social affect on the person.
Hearing loss may mean more than simply making sounds louder to hear. Often turning up the volume or amplifying sounds or speech makes the sound worse. For people who have sensorineural hearing loss, often you may hear the person say, “I can hear you, but I don’t understand you.” The words sound jumbled together or garbled. Shouting or talking louder only intensifies the jumbled sounds. Unfortunately, as we age, it is the higher frequencies that tend to be affected thus affecting speech sounds that can give meaning to the words we know or can make these words more difficult to distinguish from one another.
We have a desire to socialize with others, whether it be in groups, at small gatherings, or in larger environments that can introduce noisy distractions and competition. It is not uncommon for people with hearing loss to retreat from outings, family gatherings, and activities that they once enjoyed.
Society of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Nova Scotians understands the frustrations that you may be going through. We invite you to join us in a relaxing, non-threatening, and fun environment. We have partnered with the Whitney Pier Society of the Arts to run this exciting program.
The classes will run over an eight-week period starting in the spring. No experience is required and actually preferred. We will work with acrylic paint and there will be a limit to the number of people we can accommodate. Contact Rosalind at 902-564-0003 for more information or to see if you qualify/ meet the criteria.
Society of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Nova Scotians is a non-profit organization committed to providing services to meet the needs of the deaf, hard of hearing, and late deafened with dignity, integrity and respect. We are located at 762 Victoria Road, Sydney, Whitney Pier. Clare and I look forward to hearing from you at 902-5640003 or cbdeaf@ns.sympatico.ca .
It all starts hear.