This week, September 19-25, is Deaf Awareness Week, also known as International Week of the Deaf (IWD).

September 19, 2016

Author: Joanna Swanson, Head of Direct Sales, First National Bank of Omaha

This week, September 19 – 25, is Deaf Awareness Week, also known as International Week of the Deaf (IWD). IWD is celebrated annually the last full week of September (Monday through Sunday) and ends with International Day of the Deaf on the last Sunday of September. This year that falls this Sunday, September 25th. 

The first International Day of the Deaf was celebrated by the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) in 1958. WFD is an international, non-governmental organization of national associations of Deaf people and is recognized by the United Nations as the spokes-organization to promote the human rights of Deaf people. It is composed of 130 national associations of the deaf and represents approximately 70 million Deaf people worldwide.

To learn more about the week’s awareness initiatives and how to spread the word, we urge you to visit WFD’s website: https://wfdeaf.org.

Recognizing awareness days/weeks/months for the disability community is so important to our mission with the Enable Savings Plan. A few weeks ago we wrote a blog post about an op-ed in The New York Times titled “Becoming Disabled.” In it the author expressed a very real and powerful thought:

There is no clear, collective notion of what it means to experience a disability. There is no universal characteristic that signifies an individual with a disability, especially since new disability categories are continuing to be recognized, including depression, anxiety disorders, anorexia, cancers, traumatic brain injuries, and more. 

Even though the Enable Savings Plan cannot assist everyone in the disability community, we are committed to helping every individual we can, and to spreading awareness about the different disabilities out there – be it physical, sensory, emotional, or cognitive.

If you have a particular awareness day/week/month you’d like us to know about,  click here. We are always looking to learn more about the disability community, and bring awareness and attention to each cause.