“It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”
Tips for Communicating with a Deaf or Hearing Impaired Person
“Have you ever interacted with a Deaf person in your surroundings? I bet you wondered how do they survive in a world without the ability to hear. In Pakistan, more than 10 Million people have some level of hearing loss and they are still discriminated against.
Our CEO, Azima Dhanjee, is a Child of Deaf Adults (CODA). Growing up, she was the interpreter for her parents at all instances and her unavailability led to her parents’ missing out on opportunities. It always bothered her to witness her parents’ not being able to communicate independently. This became the motivation behind starting Connect Hear “
Tips for Communicating With Deaf People
Blog for Communicating with a Deaf Person
12 Tips for Communicating with a Deaf Person (But really you should go to their website it has picture and is much clearer!) Connect Hear
No matter who you’re interacting with, the most important thing to remember is that you should work together with the other person to create an accessible environment. Keep in mind that deaf and hard of hearing people who are part of the Deaf community may have certain cultural and etiquette differences that appear while communicating.
Never say “I’ll tell you later”, “never mind”, or “it doesn’t matter” to a deaf or hard of hearing person. Almost all deaf and hard of hearing people have heard these phrases, or variations of them, countless times while being excluded from information or conversations. Make an effort to include everybody.
Don’t assume anything. Not all deaf and hard of hearing people prefer to communicate in the same way. Some might prefer to speak, some might prefer to sign, and some might prefer to write. Ask them how they want to proceed. They probably know exactly what they want from you.
If you speak out loud and they don’t understand, try writing on a piece of paper or typing on your phone. If you write or type with a deaf person, do not look down on their English skills. Remember that many deaf and hard of hearing people are deprived of language as children and that English is a second language for many Deaf people.
If you know American Sign Language and you’re talking to a deaf or hard of hearing person who uses sign language, you should try to sign yourself. Even if you feel nervous or unskilled, the person you’re talking to will appreciate your effort, and they’ll let you know if they prefer to communicate a different way.
Want to learn American Sign Language? Check out our Resources page.
Deaf and hard of hearing people process information visually, and it is much easier to communicate if you wait until they look at you before you begin. Get their attention. That way they can see your mouth, facial expressions, and body language.
If you need to get the attention of somebody who can’t hear you, try the following:
Deaf and hard of hearing people are visual. Those who are a part of the Deaf Community, especially, are experts at reading body language. Gesturing and using clear facial expressions when speaking to a person with hearing differences will help them understand what you’re saying.
Miming is also okay if it helps to get a certain point across, but remember that mime is not the same as sign language.
People who are deaf or hard of hearing sometimes miss individual words or phrases during speech and rely on their knowledge of what’s being discussed to fill in the gaps. However, conversations often change subject without warning, especially in groups.
If the topic of conversation changes, pausing to acknowledge the change and state the new subject can be a big help. Something as simple as, “Speaking of the weather…” is often enough.
Do not ask a deaf or hard of hearing person if they can lipread. Many deaf and hard of hearing people are reluctant to say that they can lipread because of the myth that it allows for 100% understanding.
According to the National Association for the Deaf, “On average, even the most skilled lipreaders understand only 25% of what is said to them, and many individuals understand far less. Lipreading is most often used as a supplement to the use of residual hearing, amplification, or other assistive listening technology. Because lipreading requires some guesswork, very few deaf or hard of hearing people rely on lipreading alone for exchanges of important information.”
If you know that lipreading is happening, make sure that the other person can see your face, and follow these tips:
Lighting is an important factor in making sure the other person can see your face. If possible, try to communicate in bright spaces. Do not sit or stand directly in front of a light source, as that will create a shadow over your face that makes lipreading extremely difficult.
Speaking clearly and enunciating can help a deaf or hard of hearing person understand you. However, it does not mean shouting and speaking extremely slowly. Why?
Conversations with more than three or four participants are difficult situations for deaf and hard of hearing people. The back and forth nature of a group conversation can be hard to follow and mentally exhausting.
If you are planning a formal meeting, be proactive in planning for accessibility.
If your conversation is informal, be proactive in asking the participating deaf or hard of hearing people how you can make the situation accessible for them. You may want to do this in private so they feel comfortable being honest. Three easy tips to make any group conversation more accessible:
Even if you follow all of the above tips while speaking to a deaf or hard of hearing person, they might still misunderstand you at some point. Don’t stop. Just repeat yourself and continue the conversation. If they’re having trouble understanding a certain word or phrase, try using a different word, rephrasing what you said, or typing it in your phone.
Resist the urge to give up when misunderstandings happen. A little effort on your part can make a big difference to somebody else, and you’ll benefit from the experience, too.
Working and welcoming and Keeping Safe Practices. Thank you volunteers!
A GREEN PUBLIC WORKS PROGRAM FOR NYC: 40 IDEAS FROM EXPERTS
Full plan here
A Green Public Works Program for NYC: 40 Ideas from Experts To understand how New York might take advantage of federal investment to create jobs and help the city mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change, CUF asked city leaders in coastal resilience, environmental justice, urban agriculture, renewable energy, and more for sustainability and resiliency project ideas. by Laird Gallagher, Safiyyah Edwards, Cameron Haas, and Jonathan Bowles
Some of the ideas include:
Jeffrey Raven
Principal
RAVEN A+U
Build a network of energy hubs
The city should build neighborhood energy hubs to store energy in large-capacity smart grid batteries, and secondarily act as recharge stations, bike storage, drop-off centers, civic spaces, or last-mile freight hubs. Placing energy hubs throughout New York City’s neighborhoods would not only build energy resiliency within communities but act as colorful and aesthetically important symbols of each neighborhood. These colorful iconographic structures would be designed to reflect New York City’s neighborhood identities and needs, instantly becoming 21st century icons on the urban landscape.
Pat Sapinsley
Managing Director of Cleantech Initiatives
Urban Future Lab, NYU Tandon
Repurpose public land into renewable power plants, microgrids, and energy storage
Replacing fossil fuel-based power plants with renewable energy plus long duration energy storage facilities has been shown to result in significant cost savings in healthcare as well as job opportunities for the surrounding communities. Rikers Island is especially well-suited for this conversion, and has growing support as evidenced in the Renewable Rikers Act.
Clare Miflin
Founder
Center for Zero Waste Design
Develop neighborhood-scale composting infrastructure
Equipment in large buildings can reduce odors, pests and the volume of organic waste by up to 90 percent, making it easier for understaffed and space-constrained buildings to manage. Investments in local composting infrastructure can increase processing capacities greatly, and excess organic material could be returned to the regional farm system.
Hildegaard Link
Chair, Resilient Red Hook
Director, Sustainability, SEBS Rutgers University
Build energy resilience through community solar
Neighborhoods served by above ground power lines are especially vulnerable to extreme weather. Constructing a microgrid powered by community solar would allow the neighborhood to power residents, businesses, and essential public services during emergencies that often plague the low-lying, coastal communities like Red Hook. Constructing a community grid of solar energy sources would also work to unify neighborhoods. A community solar grid could help to foster a shared sense of ownership within the neighborhood and also respond to the unique needs of local small businesses.
Hana Kassem
Principal
Kohn Pedersen Fox
Revise East Side Coastal Resiliency Plan to leave park intact
The current East River resiliency proposal calls for raising the majority of the park above the 100-year flood plain, but that requires cutting down many of its trees and the phased decommissioning of large portions of the park. But given how vital the park is to multiple neighborhoods for exercise, social gathering, and informal cultural activities, especially during Covid-19, it may be worth revisiting the earlier version of the plan, which left most of the park intact by creating a flood barrier wall with flood gates along the east side of FDR. This resiliency strategy could be taken up again for the majority of the park, thus saving the park trees and maintaining its accessibility in some form during construction.
Reconfigure flood protections under FDR Drive to provide new, Covid-safe uses
What if we rethought the underbelly of the elevated sections of the FDR to become a series of raised outdoor covered rooms that allowed for a variety of safe uses? These raised platforms would be combined with barrier walls and flood gates, positioned astutely to provide the necessary flood protection. To extend their use into the colder months, these outdoor rooms could be outfitted with solar-powered outdoor heaters and lighting. This large-scale project would foster social interaction and community spaces, boost the local restaurant and retail industries, reignite the city’s cultural life, promote health and wellbeing, all while addressing resiliency, sustainability, wellness and creating jobs.
Justin Green
Founder and Executive Director
Big Reuse
Construct reuse centers in every neighborhood
Material reuse can both help the environment and create local economic growth. Instead of buying a dresser that was made in another country from recently cutdown trees and shipped around the world—we can reuse locally. In addition to the initial labor needed to build reuse centers, these facilities can create jobs for workers to manage and operate the facilities. Reuse and repair centers not only keep materials circulating within the community; they also keep the money exchanged for goods, repairs and refurbishment within the local economy, too. In the long term, these centers also encourage sustainable shopping behaviors. Reuse centers can create jobs, keep materials out of the landfill and become close to self-funded with some additional support for transitional workforces.
Repurpose portions of public space & parkland into community composting sites
Constructing composting sites would generate jobs not only from site development but from running the pickup and composting programs. This will encourage local composting and generate compost to divert materials from waste streams going to landfills.
Paul Gallay
President and Hudson Riverkeeper
Riverkeeper
Invest in community-driven, nature-based coastal resilience projects
With sea levels rising, New York City must support community-driven, nature-based solutions for coastal resilience. Rather than focusing on expensive offshore storm surge barriers, the city should construct onshore environmental infrastructure such as berms, living shorelines, salt marshes, and wetlands which provide cheaper, more adaptable, and less ecologically destructive protection against sea level rise. Projects such as stormwater retention gardens and salt marsh restorations have already been successfully completed in other northeastern cities like Boston. Native plants and trees that can survive both dry and flooded conditions should also be prioritized in coastal communities. A workforce tasked with plant stewardship can be responsible for the long term care of these plantings. In designing and executing these climate-smart projects, front-line communities should be central, especially historically disempowered and BIPOC communities.
Candace Damon
Vice Chairman
HR&A Advisors
Support maintenance projects
The default progressive response to economic downturn is to invest in capital projects that can be advanced quickly and that address other contemporary policy priorities—today, resilience, climate adaptation, and equity. Virtually by definition, however, shovel-ready capital projects are those which have already been funded; directing stimulus funds to them replaces one source of funds with another. While New York City should certainly welcome any expansion of its investment capabilities, the shovel-ready projects for which there is no other source of funding, indeed for which there is vastly diminished funding, are maintenance projects.
I would prioritize restoration of parks—despite being, as always, the first operating budgets cut, parks have once again demonstrated their value as critical infrastructure—and clean and efficient energy projects, including weatherization of homes and tune-up of building systems. But we should also support repair of major infrastructure, operating subsidies to strengthen regional food distribution and launch local agriculture, and a host of other maintenance projects that can be initiated within weeks of funding. These projects will all renew the aims of the Civilian Conservation Corps, this time ensuring that women and Black men get equitable access to jobs that are both less likely to be automated in the near term and offer career ladders.
Thanks to neighbors Jeffrey and Tessa here are photos removing the Belgian Blocks. The MTA Contractor Cruz promises these will return after the dig. Parks Department workers also say there are plenty of these stored for Park use.
and information on the coming dig on Forsyth Street.
And complaints about Park vehicles taking up space in the water sprinkler area of the Stanton Parkhouse area of the park since it was fenced off to keep drug dealing and use for storage by homeless or in shelter New Yorkers.
Apparently they have been removed along with the fencing.
From the Educational Alliance:
An American Kestral was caught on camera by Colleen Corkery neighbor and M’Finda Kalunga volunteer.
Katie Leung from the WildLife Unit of the Parks Department ”
“…these feature an American kestrel. I think you’re also lucky to see a kestrel with its meal in talon!”
Colleen wrote, ”
Here are pics…when it was on the lookout..with its catch and snack: a finch!”
Thank you to Bud Shalala MK Garden’s Critter Committee founder for letting us know about the photos!
Ted and Jose get the turtles ready for their winter vacation home.
From the Stanton Task Force:
Students from the Interior Design program at Pratt Institute offered their fresh thinking and design skills to our community vision for the Stanton Building in SDR Park.
Brief presentations by these Fall 2020 students of their designs for the Stanton Building were followed by a dialogue with community members. For more detailed views of their work: Stanton Task Force Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/StantonBldg/
To Stanton Street Pratt Students: We thank you for showing up in this time of hardships around the world. Our neighborhood, our representatives, Pratt professor Keena Suh and all of you in her classes continue to show us what it means to be a community that is not bounded by self-interest or ‘ownership’ or state or country but bound together with shared work and caring and our future.
“What matters is the countless small deeds of unknown people who lay the basis for the significant events that enter history. They’re the ones who have done things in the past they’re the ones who will have to do it in the future.” Howard Zinn
We live on Lanape land and give our thanks.
‘If you’ve come here to help me, you’re wasting your time. But if you have come here because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.’ -Lilla Watson, Australian Aboriginal Elder
Parks needs volunteers like never before. And they need a budget to ensure a steady effort to keep parks, clean, functional, bird and plant habitats and safe – integrating model climate mitigation efforts, recreation, play, quiet contemplation, walks, sports, gardening, community gathering, bird watching, habitat restoration, and more.
“Even as pandemic-induced restrictions have lifted, neighborhood parks have allowed life to unfold in ways that still aren’t feasible in cramped apartments. They’ve always served as communal backyards, but now they’re the best gym in town, host get-togethers that would’ve happened in bars and reception halls, and serve as a respite for those working from home or the unemployed. …”
New Yorkers Step in to Keep City Parks From Turning Into ‘Junkyards’
“Because of the pandemic, the parks system cut $84 million from its budget, which paid for 1,700 seasonal workers that typically care for our parks each summer…”
“…the budget cuts have forced a maintenance hierarchy for city parks, with playgrounds and barbecue spots at the top…Up to 500 Parks Department sites might go an entire week without a visit from a parks worker, making volunteers the last line of defense for spaces like Pelham Parkway.”
“…But without city funds, our parks could permanently deteriorate at a time when they’ve proved essential. “Volunteers don’t replace staff — they just don’t,” said Heather Lubov, executive director of the City Parks Foundation.”
