Deaf author, writer and blogger.
I was born hearing, and my hearing loss started in childhood. The correct diagnosis of progressive bilateral hearing loss only came when I was 16 years old, already at a severe level of hearing loss. That was when I started wearing hearing aids.
Until 2013, I couldn’t hear music, answer a phone call or understand human voice anymore. The prison of silence suffocated me, and I was very afraid of leaving. However, after allowing technology to transform my life, I could become a deafness activist and help thousands of people to leave this prison. It was the best thing I have ever done in my life.
I got a cochlear implant and was hearing all the sounds of the world again! 🙂
In 2019, I won the Facebook Community Leadership Program and had access to a fund of one million dollars to create and carry out the project I Am Deaf But I Can Hear, which brought high-quality information to millions of people in Brazil, Latin America, and Portugal. Thousands of these people became deaf who can hear.
I lead the biggest community of people with some degree of hearing loss who are users of hearing assistive technologies in Latin America – we are more than 22.000 people in a closed group.
I have been creating content about deafness, hearing aids and cochlear implant for a decade.
I have written three books – The Chronicles of Deafness: Hearing Aids, New Chronicles of Deafness: Cochlear Implant – both were already translated to English and Spanish – and Come Out of the Deafness Closet. I am married to Dr Luciano Moreira, an ENT doctor expert in deafness and ear surgery.
I have lectured about deafness and technology for Google, Facebook, Avon, Women of Tomorrow, WPP Stream, TEDx Talks, Creditas, Bradesco Seguros, U.S. Consulate, SESC, Oracle, and other countless companies, and thousands of people keep up with my work.
Being a deaf who can hear is a reality to millions of people around the world, and spreading this knowledge is essential.
I AM DEAF BUT I CAN HEAR movement.
I Am Deaf But I Can Hear was born at the beginning of 2017, when I had to decide the title of my TEDx Talks. Since then, I have already lost count of how many times I’ve heard: “What do you mean deaf who can hear? Deaf people can’t hear!”.
The expression sounded accurate and assertive. It evokes curiosity in people who do not know the subject and makes them look forward to the answer to this recurring question. This way, we spread information, fight against fake news, break taboos, and shatter preconceptions about people with any level of hearing loss.
At the end of 2018, when I won the Facebook Community Leadership Program(a Facebook’s global program of leadership with more than 6500 candidates in the whole world) for Latin America, I was assigned the mission of creating and carrying out a project on behalf of our community.
And that is how I Am Deaf But I Can Hear turned into a huge project, carried out from January 2019 to June 2020, and had the following actions:
Video campaign: millions of people in Brazil and in the world watched the 12 videos of the campaign which told life stories of deaf people who can hear.
Audible Connections: events 100% accessible to deaf people (with real-time closed captions, T-Coil and sign language interpreter) which shared high-quality information through lectures, testimonials, and talk shows with renowned hearing health professionals. In Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), we had a 500 people audience, and more than 1.135 people attended an Audible Connections in 2019.
Recognizing and training new leaders: we recognize and train new leaders in the I Am Deaf But I Can Hear community so that turn into creative people and replicate our actions in our whole country.
Course for Parents of Deaf Who Can Hear: we created an online course with deafness experts (ENT doctors, audiologists, psychologists, social assistants, mothers of deaf who can hear and Paula Pfeifer) to share high-quality information about early auditory rehabilitation.
#IAmDeafButICanHear transformed into an intense movement, reaching countless people on social media and receiving a lot of attention from the press.
The representativeness, the sense of community and belonging makes it possible for us, every day, to welcome new members, to help people to come out of the deafness closet and to discover everything technology, medicine, and audiology are capable of doing, today, for a deaf person. Deafness is invisible, we are not!