Development for the deaf

One of my highlights not only of this trip, but of this year has been the visit to work in this city dealing with the deaf. The population of deaf here is around 20,000 and in China an estimated 70 million. This is due to an antibiotic given to children in a strong dosage causing many to become deaf as children. We visited their workshop where they made beautiul items from chinese silks and are so excited about the potential of increasing their sales significantly through export. So far they have only sold iems locally. They are in a great building and have alot of room for more people to work here. I worked on getting fabric samples, reviewing their production, qualiy control and learning a bit of Chinese sign language in the process. Of course I had 13 others with me all learning sign, visiting with the workers and then on to their small store to purchase their products. We definitely made an impact on their monthly sales, at exactly the right time. They had been concerned about sales but we were happy to make our dent in the economy here and support the project with our purchases. As we left they all waved good bye and I was moved to tears.