1) What motivated you to join Hear the World Expeditions?
First I was nominated from my clinic. As I looked around I was super excited because this is what I want to do as a career: raise awareness about hearing loss and how it can be preventable with the hearing technology and therapy we have today. Especially help the people who do not have this kind of access.

2) Have you experienced any particular stigma/intolerance towards your hearing loss in your daily life? If so please describe.
I will always struggle with my hearing loss but I do make the best of it. Sometimes I misinterpret people and conversations. When that happens, I ask them to repeat or if it's my friends we usually laugh it off.

3) What would have to change in our society for the public to become more understanding of people with hearing loss?
I would like the people in our society to understand that a child born with profound hearing loss can learn to listen and talk fluently before they reach first grade. Anything is possible.

4) From your perspective, how do you think Hear the World Expeditions can help achieve that change?
We are letting people know that hearing loss is preventable and we are traveling far and out of comfort zones to show how hearing loss is meaningful and hopeful to parents, kids, and adults. We are here for change.

1) Have you experienced any particular stigma/intolerance towards your hearing loss in your daily life? If so please describe.
I am 17 years old and I wear two hearing aids. I am fully mainstreamed in a "hearing" school. My high school is known for superior academics. I walk the halls with 2,000 hearing peers, yet I walk alone. They are "nice", but "nice" stops at the door and does not call on the weekend to just hang out. I am different, therefore I feel isolated most of the time in school. When I am surfing I don't look any different. My hearing loss is not visible in the water and I am accepted. Needless to say, I would rather be surfing than in school with all those "nice" kids.

2) What would have to change in our society for the public to become more understanding of people with hearing loss?
Society needs to be educated on the subject of hearing loss. However, they would need to be open minded and they would need to have the desire to know more about it or it would just be another forced subject.

3) From your perspective, how do you think Hear the World Expeditions can help achieve that change?
They can teach people about hearing loss. Most importantly, expeditions like this can show people that hearing loss is not a disability.

1) What motivated you to join Hear the World Expeditions?
I strongly support the trips that Global Explores takes students on and I believe that integrated with Hear the World is going to make for an ultimate life changing experience.

2) What do you hope to get out of your participation in the program?
I hope to gain some major leadership skills, experience the rain forest, change and challenge my perceptive on the hearing disabled. And to learn some new and amazing things that really effect my decisions down the road in a positive way.

1) What motivated you to join Hear the World Expeditions?
I have participated in past Global Explorers trips with the Leading The Way program. This will be a completely new experience for me. My main motivation for joining this group is the experience I will gain. Learning how others overcome challenges in their lives will help me throughout my life as I overcome my own and help others do the same

2) What do you hope to get out of your participation in the program?
I hope to expand my personal horizon, and then be able to use my new knowledge on the subject to educate and inform my local/ international community.

3) Do you have any personal relationships and/or connections to the topic of hearing/hearing loss that that made you want to join this expedition?
Growing up my best friend’s mother was deaf. Seeing them communicate with one another and break through their personal barriers was something I had never personally experienced at that age.

1) What motivated you to join Hear the World Expeditions?
In short, i was motivated to join Hear the World Expeditions because my father is hearing impaired. He is very involved in getting out the message for those with hearing loss, and he showed me this opportunity and excited me a lot!

2) What part of the expedition are you looking forward to the most?
I am looking forward to seeing and hearing the sounds associated with the Amazon, this I think will be an experience of a lifetime.

1) What motivated you to join Hear the World Expeditions?
I wanted to have an adventure in the Amazon, and I was very interested in the idea of spending time with both hearing impaired and normal hearing people. I like the idea of having normal hearing people understand what it's like to be hearing impaired.

2) What would have to change in our society for the public to become more understanding of people with hearing loss?
We have to better inform people of hearing loss and the difficulties with hearing loss and counter. The best way to do this is start teaching children when they are young about all aspects of hearing impairment, the positive and the negatives. Also, spending time with normal hearing people will probably teach them best.

3) From your perspective, how do you think Hear the World Expeditions can help achieve that change?
I expect that as a hearing impaired person, I will have the opportunity to speak openly about what it's like for me to be part of the hearing society. I hope that everyone in the group will be open to learning from us and will spread the word in their own communities.

1) What motivated you to join Hear the World Expeditions?
Personal Education, Life Experience

2) What do you hope to get out of your participation in the program?
A greater understanding of all peoples.

3) Do you have any personal relationships and/or connections to the topic of hearing/hearing loss that that made you want to join this expedition?
My Grandfather suffers from hearing loss, and I find it very interesting how he, and those around him have learned to deal with his disposition.

1) What motivated you to join Hear the World Expeditions?
I am interesting in learning as much about our world as possibly can; I felt that Global Explorers was the ideal platform for total immersion in ecofriendly travel, respectful cultural interactions, as well as stepping outside of one's comfort zone in order to accomplish a mutual goal.

2) What do you hope to get out of your participation in the program?
I hope to open my eyes to something waiting just outside my realm of realization. I have an open mind and I'm hoping that this expedition will fill it with the innate pulchritude the world has to offer. I also believe this will inspire me to further contribute to causes greater than myself, within my own community.

3) What part of the expedition are you looking forward to the most?
I am thoroughly excited for everything this expedition has to offer, whatever that may be. This is going to be a life-changing experience for me. I will treasure everything presented to me in each moment. I hold no expectations of what the trip should or should not be, but instead choose to let the environment and atmosphere of the expedition define itself.

4) Do you have any personal relationships and/or connections to the topic of hearing/hearing loss that that made you want to join this expedition?
I have been studying American Sign Language for two years, under an instructor who is almost completely deaf. I have become enamored with deaf culture as well as the language. Overall, I simply enjoy all methods of communication, however difficult or stressful it may become, it is a natural human desire to understand each other, and I feel that this is the key to peaceful interpersonal and intercultural relationships.