Board of Directors and Staff
Betty Anderson: Director
Director
| 245 Park Avenue PO Box 916 Winnipeg Beach, MB R0C 3G0 |
Tel: 204-389-5249 E-mail: betander@mts.net |
Winnipeg has been my home base since I first moved here from Ontario to attend university. My parents both faced physical challenges that became the basis of my interest and involvement in the field of special needs education. My father's degenerative hearing loss, which I would experience later, and his experiences, adjustments and frustrations with it, further shaped my career choice and my personal response to being a hard of hearing person.
Over the next 15 years while studying, travelling, teaching and beginning my own family, I completed a B.A. and Teacher's Certification year. After experiencing teaching and life in a rural Manitoban town, I returned to university to complete a Pre-Masters Resource Program and a Masters in Educational Psychology. My focus of study was the education of children with special needs and the influence of culture and language in the learning process. I was able to live what I learned as a volunteer teacher in the Caribbean for a summer teacher-training program, and as a teacher in international schools in Africa, and Central and South America.
Returning to Manitoba, to work with an aboriginal organization, I developed a much-needed hearing screening program throughout reserve schools in the province. It was also at this time that I recognized my own beginning hearing loss.
Currently, I have a severe-to-profound hearing loss. I have experienced professional loss as well as related isolation, frustration, and depression. Through the support of my family and friends, involvement in classes for "Living with Hearing Loss", and membership in the CHHA organization in Winnipeg, I have come to accept my hearing loss as a part of me. In many ways I see it as a new opportunity to learn from and advocate for people with special needs, and to become another voice for the hard of hearing.