Tatiana Svrčková (source: Slovak Telekom)
Why has the company providing services primarily intended for hearing people, decided to support the Hearing Impaired?
Tatiana Svrčková (TS): Helen Keller, American author, political activist, and lecturer who was visually and hearing impaired, describes hearing disability very beautifully and simply: “Blindness separates people from things; deafness separates people from people”. Slovak Telekom (ST) via its services is connecting people and enabling access to information. Services like internet, SMS (short message service) or MMS (multimedia messaging service) make the connection of the Hearing Impaired with the surrounding world easier and simultaneously serve as sources of information. This way we can help them, at least a bit, to remove the communication barrier.
When did Slovak Telekom start supporting activities for the Hearing-Impaired and what development has the support by ST undergone during this period?
TS: We launched the support in 2002, when we still operated as EuroTel. We designed a special package of services for the Hearing-Impaired and within our philanthropic activities we supported one-off projects. 2004 and 2008 were breakthrough years. In 2004 we began to more familiarise our sellers with the culture of the Hearing-Impaired and we launched a school of signs and public courses of the sign language. In 2008 we, in cooperation with the Pontis Foundation, prepared a tailor-made grant programme – “Looking for Another Sense – FOR BUSINESS”.
What programmes has Slovak Telekom supported so far and what have been their outcomes in the sense of problems solved?
TS: Over all these years we have supported dozens of projects either in sports, culture or the social field. Nowadays it is, for example, support of music therapy, concerts for Hearing-Impaired children, sign language lectures for the public and others. But the most valuable are programmes to support business and Mobile Teacher.
Part of the programme Looking for Another Sense – FOR BUSINESS is educating of to-be entrepreneurs, financial support of their business plans, mentor programme, consultancy as well as making them visible. So far 52 Hearing-Impaired have passed this programme and today as much as 30 of them have their own independent businesses, which is a huge success.
The Mobile Teacher programme, we kicked off in 2012, brings support to families, in which a hearing-impaired child was born.
Based on what do you choose activities to be supported? From where do ideas or impulses arrive?
TS: It is various. We know that we cannot solve all the problems of the Hearing Impaired and support all the projects we would like to. We discuss with many experts and people from the community of Hearing Impaired and sometimes it is also a ‘fight’. And without the support of people from the Pontis Foundation we would not have managed it. All this is teamwork.
Are you preparing something new right now, something that would enrich the ongoing projects?
TS: We are preparing, as a novelty, a project of interpreting into sign language via the internet. We also consider as enormously important help and support for parents and experts endeavouring for a systematic change in early care for Hearing Impaired child. Via our programmes we can help only a small and limited group of families, but if the system changes, hearing impaired children will get a chance for a higher quality life.
