Artist and illustrator Yiqiao Wang has designed a special collection of vibrant mugs and mugs for sale at Starbucks’ Signing Store in Washington, D.C. The design pays tribute to the Deaf community thorugh use of determined, brave, daring and colorful hands framed by coffee cherries that spell out the word “connect” in ASL.

The Graffiti Tejido Campaign which is now underway to increase and make deaf blindness visible, through art. Woven paintings measuring 20 by 20 cm is being displayed. It has tissue squares to demonstrate that deafblind people can pass, touch and know. This is an effort for the community in Guadalajara to become more aware of Deaf people.

People of the Hindu faith celebrate a 9-day holiday called Navratri four times each year. They are celebrated differently in which part of India. For example feasting, dance and stories takes place in Mumbai, a city of 12 million people. Hindi Deaf people have met every year for 31 years to celebrate the fourth and most popular of the four Navartri, called Shardiya Navrati which begins on October 15 and continues through October 23. Organizers say it has become one of the largest gatherings of Deaf people in the Mumbai area, and possibly in all of India. The center of this celebration is the Hindu goddess Durga, a warrior. In the Hindi faith she is considered a powerful destroyer of evil.

The Laura Quinkan Indigenous Dance Festival is held every 2 years in a tiny northern Australia town and attended by over 4,000 people. Indigeneous residents, including Deaf dancers compete. Ity is one of the oldest regular indigenous events in Australia, running since the early 1980’s. For 25 years, the Deaf Indigenous Dance Group (DIDG) has participated in the competition. Created by Patty Morris-Banjo, it is one of the few events that brings Deaf Aboriginal people together regularly. The Aboriginal people of Australia number between 300,000 and 1,000,000, and the number of Deaf Aboriginals is even smaller.

There is growing concern about the gap in educational progress between Deaf and hearing students in Ireland. . In all of Great Britain, Deaf students are behind hearing students by about one grade in each subject. Because Ireland is very short on teachers specializing in Deaf education – 40% fewer than Britain – the education lag among Irish students may be larger than Britain’s. Britain has stricter requirements for Deaf education, so quality of instruction in Ireland may also lag. Mainstreamed education is the standard in Ireland, so many Deaf students experience isolation at school and often at home.