At her kindergarten, they are specially not teaching Vika sign language. Children who learn to express themselves in sign do not understand why they should express themselves with sound, even if they begin to hear.
Photo: Sergey Mikheev
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Waiting to Hear
// Vika Amanova can't ask for help
The girls is five years old. She can't hear. Therefore, she can't speak. The ten words she has learned to pronounce can only be understood by her mother and specialists. Vika needs a cochlear implant – a prosthesis in the ear canal inside the skull. Then Vika will be able to hear and learn to speak.
There is a drawing in my notebook that Vika made for me of a girl with her arms spread out funny, with enormous eyelashes and a belly button. She wrote VIKA across the top. It's amazing that a girl who can't say a word can still write.
We walk through Central Park in Ryazan. We bought Vika a balloon. Of hundreds available, Vika chose mermaid balloon. I wanted to ask her if she knew that the mermaid in Andersen's fairytale was mute. But how could I? She can't hear.
There is a playground in the middle of the park. While she plays on the equipment, her mother and I talk on a bench.
She mother tells me that they are specially not teaching Vika sign language. They hope that she will get a cochlear implant and she will be able to hear. They don't want her to know sign language because children who learn to express themselves in sign do not understand why they should express themselves with sound, even if they begin to hear. Teaching a five-year-old who knows sign language to talk is like teaching her a foreign language. That is why the state accepts only children under two in its waiting list for cochlear implants. Then the children remain on the waiting list for years and they never get implants.
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For those who are encountering the Russian Aid Fund for the first time
The Russian Aid Fund was founded in 1996 to assistant the authors of desperate letters sent to Kommersant. We verify the letters with the help of local authorities, then publish the letters in Kommersant, Domovoi magazine and on the site www.rusfond.ru. If you decide to help, you will receive the banking details of the authors of the letters, and the rest is up to you. You just help you help. This approach has been popular with our readers. More than $8.4 million has been collected. We also organize relief efforts during national catastrophes, for 53 families of the miners who died in the Zyryanovskaya Mine in Kuzbass, 57 families of the policemen who burned to death in Samara, 153 families of the victims of explosions in Moscow and Volgodonsk, 118 families of the sailors who died on the submarine Kursk, 52 families of the hostages who died in the seizure of the performance of Nord Ost, 39 families of those who died in the Moscow Metro on February 6, 2004, 100 families who suffered losses in Beslan. The Fund is the winner of the Silver Archer award.
The Russian Aid Fund
Address: P.O. Box 50, 125252 Moscow, Russia
www.rusfond.ru
e-mail: rfp@kommersant.ru
Telephone: +7 (095) 943-9135
Telephone/fax: +7 (095) 158-6904
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Vika plays delightedly on the playground equipment. Her mother calls out from time to time, “Vika, be careful. Vika, don't! You'll fall!”
But the girl can't hear her. I think, how is it possible to spend all your childhood without hearing your parents' words?
When Vika needs something, she climbs on top of the bars and begins to shout. She looks like a baby bird on a limb calling “Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!” and slowly turning around looking for her mother.
“Vika! We're here!” her mother calls.
“Ah! Ah! Ah!”
“We're here!”
Vika finally sees us. She tilts her head back, holds her fist up and twists her wrists as if pouring liquid into her mouth. She's thirsty.
After she has some juice, the girl takes me by the hands and leads me to one of the playground attractions. There is a high wooden wall with holes in it for children to climb up it. Ropes hang down For the children to hang onto while climbing. Vika can't do it. She explains this to me by pressing her hand to her heart and tracing her would-be path with her index finger.
“Vika, you can't go there!” her mother calls.
But Vika can't hear. I play deaf for the moment too.
Everything would be fine if she started out on the other foot. She puts her left foot in the hole for the right foot and them has nowhere to put her other foot. I start to tell her what to do, then remember.
“Lord, help her,” her mother whispers behind us.
Even when she understands that, she isn't strong enough to pull herself up. I support her with my hand on the small of her back. She tries until she is coated in sweat, and after making it part way, runs around it with triumphant cries of “Ah!”
No one pays much attention to her. Only her other and I think to wave our arms in acknowledgment.
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687,095 rubles are needed to make Vika hear
Doctors say that Vika Amanova has fourth-degree perceptive hearing loss in the right ear and is complete deaf in the left ear. Vika's mother Olesya Amanova wrote to the Fund that the Russian Center for Audiology and Hearing Enhancement told her that Vika needs an operation immediately to restore hearing in one ear. The operation for the cochlear implant is free, but the implant itself has to be purchased for 980,000 rubles. That is why the Amanovs contacted the Russian Aid Fund. They will not be able to raise such a sum “in the foreseeable future.” The social services department of the town of Spasska in Ryazan Region showed us documents indicating the Amanov family lives on 1033 rubles per member per month.
Dr. Nelli Meleshina of the Russian Center for Audiology and Hearing Enhancement confirmed that Vika needs an operation for a cochlear implantation. The center has contracted with Istok Audio for a Freedom BTE&BW implant for the girl.
As always, our permanent partner the Ingosstrakh insurance company is contributing $11,500, which leaves 687,095 rubles to go.
Dear friends, practice has shown that our readers can raise the remaining sum needed. But August is not a usual month. It is the peak of vacation time. Many of the people who usually participate in our efforts are not reading the paper now. Therefore, any contribution of any size is especially valuable right now.
Aid can for obtaining the cochlear implant can be transferred to the account of Vika's mother Olesya Petrovna Amanova at Sberbank. The details are available from the fund.
The expert group of the Russian Aid Fund
Valery Panyushkin, special for the Russian Aid Fund
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 10, 2007
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