All About Advocacy Organizations - Episode 59 with Oren Dvoskin and Damien Kelman, Bekol

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On today’s episode of All About Audiology, I’m joined by two very special guests: Oren Dvoskin, a bi-lateral cochlear implant user and member of Bekol, a non-profit organization for the hearing impaired here in Israel, as well as Damian Kelman, Bekol’s CEO.

This week on the All About Audiology podcast:

1:27 – A hearing test in junior high revealed that Oren had mild hearing loss. By high school, this had progressed and he started using hearing aids.

4:45 – Even a mild case of hearing loss can have a huge impact on how a person functions. This can affect their lives socially and academically in many different ways.

8:08 – Around the age of 30, Oren was refused an assessment for cochlear implants as his hearing was considered “too good”. Nowadays, cochlear implants are known to be beneficial for patients with various levels of hearing loss.

10:15 – Damian is welcomed to the call, and advises that approximately 700,000 Israelis are currently coping with hearing loss.

11:22 – For over two decades, Bekol has been promoting optimal hearing rehabilitation for those with hearing loss. This includes empowering them, improving their quality of life, and helping to facilitate their integration into general society.

15:26 – Becoming a member of Bekol allowed Oren to socialize with other people with hearing impairments for the first time. Being a member also contributed to his making friends and leading a full social life.

17:39 – Oren paid for his first cochlear implant himself, but due to Bekol’s advocacy to improve legislation, his second implant was paid for by the Israeli healthcare system.

21:13 – Don’t let fear or embarrassment hold you back from receiving services that will help you to succeed in your life/education/work. Use every resource that you are entitled to because that’s what they are there for!

25:13 – People must be able to fulfill their potential and live life the way they choose to. That is why Bekol fights for accessibility and equal opportunities for deaf and hard of hearing people.

29:37 – Everyone’s experience with hearing loss is unique. It’s important to know what different treatment options are available to you so that you can make the choice that is right for you and your family.

32:27 – One of the things that are so unique about Bekol, is that it was founded and managed by hearing-impaired individuals.

35:02 – Like many other organizations, Bekol has felt the financial impact of the global pandemic. They have launched a crowdfunding campaign, to help them adapt their programs and services to the “new normal”.

For more resources and research visit:

All About Audiology Website

www.allaboutaudiology.com

All About Audiology Facebook group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/470583160143167/about

AllAbout Audiology Instagram

allaboutaudiologypodcast

Bekol Website

https://bekol.org/english/

For the Campaign:

https://givechak.co.il/14822/en?ref=rhhttps://cutt.ly/VjULTp0

To contact Oren: ordvoskin@gmail.com

Oren’s LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ordvoskin/

Oren’s Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ordvoskin

To contact Damian: damian@bekol.org

Damian’s Facebook https://www.facebook.com/damian.kelman

Damian’s LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/damiankelman/

Next Time on All About Audiology:

Episode 60 – All About Online Safety – with Lisa Honold

Transcript:

Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
Welcome back to the All About Audiology Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Lilach Saperstein. On this podcast, we discuss topics of audiology and how they apply to your life. We’re not just talking about audiograms and hearing aids or X’s and O’s but everything that goes along with the experience around audiology, whether it is yourself, someone you love, if you’re a student of this profession or one of my colleagues. I welcome you to the podcast.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
On today’s episode, I’m joined by two very interesting gentlemen, and we are going to be hearing both from the user experience part of things and also a little bit about a nonprofit organization here in Israel that is doing a lot of work for families and patients around these topics. Today I am joined by Oren Dvoskin who is a cochlear implant user and will share some of his journey and his story as well as Damian Kelman the CEO of Bekol, an organization here in Israel.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
Welcome Oren and hello Damian. Welcome to the show. I want to start with you, Oren, and get a little bit of your background and just a little bit of who you are.
Oren Dvoskin:
Thanks Dr. Lilach. I always say that I have a bit of an ironic story with hearing impairment. My mom is a special ed teacher, and as a young child she decided to send myself and my sister to a very unique kindergarten that had a class of both hearing impaired kids and normal hearing kids. I belonged to the normal hearing kids at the time.
Oren Dvoskin:
My hearing loss was first found only in junior high school. Long story, I was born in Omaha, Nebraska. We moved to Israel and then moved back to states. I had a hearing test in junior high, and it came out with a mild hearing loss. Now, that would’ve blown a lot of whistles and bells, but apparently not at the time and even not when I had a special ed mom. We moved back to Israel. Years went on. I entered high school and started failing miserably. We started checking what’s going on and then someone remembered that I had a hearing loss. We did a hearing test again, and I’ll never forget the look on the face of my ENT doctor when he saw the results and basically two weeks afterwards I started using my first set of hearing aids, although unfortunately my hearing kept on deteriorating from then, and I reached a level of profound deafness around the age of 30 when I got my first cochlear implant and then a second and then a third since one of them failed.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
Oh, boy. Okay, we’re going to get into all that. It’s such a great story. First of all, I want to say I related to you on the moving back and forth because my parents are Israeli, and then we lived in different countries in South America and then in the states, and then now I live back here now with my husband and kids. So it’s always a ping-pong, the third culture or international all of that, the languages. So I relate to that.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
I’m curious about you mentioned that you had the first mild diagnosis, but no one took it really seriously. Did you feel at the time that you were having any trouble hearing or that you were missing things or that’s just how it was for you so you didn’t really notice it or affect you in any way?
Oren Dvoskin:
Well, in retrospect, I absolutely knew I had a hearing loss. I suffered from tinnitus basically from the age I could remember myself. I used to have these tinnitus outbreaks, and I used to go and hide under some table in our living room in my parent’s house. Also, in retrospect, I was always this astronaut kid. I remember even back as first and second grade when the teacher would ask me a question and I would never know what was going on. I thought that’s how things are. As many other hearing impaired people, I was able to develop all kinds of tactics and have my processor in my head work overtime to cope through things until it became really too much.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
Yeah, and also as your hearing was deteriorating over that time. I would just say this for everyone who’s listening that any amount of hearing loss even mild which seems mild, not a big deal, actually can have a lot of implications on someone’s functioning. So that’s a question we get a lot from parents who say, “Oh, it’s maybe not so much. They can hear most of the time.” But it really can have a lot of effects socially, academically and even personality like you’re saying that you were a little spaced out and not paying attention, not on the ball.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
So definitely recommend taking a look at that no matter what’s going on.
Oren Dvoskin:
Yeah. Hearing loss is really tricky. You never know what you’re missing. It takes also a lot of confidence to be able to function in that environment where you’re not really sure of what’s going on and all kinds of tactics and understand that life is a balancing act and that you have to keep on top of… especially when my hearing loss was degrading, to keep on top of the changes. Every few years I had to cope with things anew. You talked about how audiology isn’t all about X’s and O’s, and I completely agree with that. The audiologists that had the most profound effect on my life were the ones that were a companion, that were able to hold up a mirror in front of me and say, “Oren, this is what’s going on. This is what you have to do. If it’s a cochlear implant, then, yeah, you should really go for that. You’re having a really tough time. I’m looking at the wear and tear on your FM system, which means you’re probably overusing it and it’s time to go on.”
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
That also is telling me that once you had those hearing aids and you had an FM system you already were doing everything, devices and accessories and trying to do all the communication strategies to try and communicate as best as you could. Tell me a little about that process of coming to the cochlear implant, learning about it and deciding that was your next step.
Oren Dvoskin:
Like I said, it was an ongoing process of coping. Basically, exhausting the current strategies before moving on. I think it’s more of a process like you said on personality and coping wise, so I’ve been able to do interesting things in life like volunteer to become an officer in the Israeli Army. But every stage required an adaptation also of my hearing. With the cochlear implant, I think I was clinging on as long as I could to my hearing. At the time I was 30, that’s almost 20 years ago, and there wasn’t that much of an experience at least not in Israel with late onset progressive hearing loss adults. The few stories that I was hearing was just too good to be true on one hand and on the other I had enough functional hearing that I actually called the clinic with my mobile phone to set up an appointment, and they’d be like, “Hey, Oren, so you want to set a call for an assessment?” I’m like, “Right.” How are you calling me? I said, “Yeah, with my mobile phone.” Sir, call us again in half a year because your hearing is too good.
Oren Dvoskin:
So that took a while. I think the decision to go into the implant had a lot of apprehension. I even went through some consulting around that, and it just changed my life. That’s a whole different podcast that I’m sure you’ve already talked about.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
Oh, but I’d love to hear your take on it as well. I think just on the comment of what you said that you called and they’re like, “You hear too well,” now, I don’t know about then, but for sure now the cochlear implant is not only for completely profound hearing loss across all the frequencies. There are hybrid models and the cochlear implant can actually be very beneficial for lots of different patients with different hearing losses. I think that’s not true anymore, that even if you can succeed at having a phone conversation, that doesn’t take away from other communication challenges around high frequencies and things like that. Again, I just have to put on my audiology hat and put that out there that getting an evaluation is just getting an evaluation to see what your hearing is, what your status is, are you a candidate or not and what the options are. It’s not a decision just to go in for that if anyone is at that stage.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
You also mentioned about how adults is a whole different story. There is so much focus on kids, on babies and on helping that population, but there’s so much room also for adults. I think we’re going to turn to Damian a little bit and hear a little more about what Bekol does. So welcome, Damian.
Damian Kelman:
Hello, everyone. It’s a pleasure to be here with you. For your followers, probably not in Israel, it’s just that according to the Israeli Center Board of Statistics approximately 700,000 Israelis are coping with hearing loss, of course, a phenomenon that’s more common among older adults. In Israel and in the rest of the western world at least every third person over the age of 65 and every second person over the age of 75 is hard of hearing. Hearing loss as you for sure know, and I guess your followers as well, hearing loss severely hinders your ability to communicate with your surroundings, increases the chances for dementia, causes frustration, and all kinds of other consequences come along with it.
Damian Kelman:
Basically, what Bekol does is promote optimal hearing rehabilitation to reduce this phenomenon. For the last two decades and more Bekol has been improving people with hearing disabilities quality of life and welfare, empowering them, facilitating their integration to general society in an independent way and advocating for their rights basically. Bekol is the leader and considered leader in Israel among nonprofit organizations in all the field of hearing rehabilitation for people 18 and onwards. Let’s just say that Bekol’s activity has a wide impact in all fields of society delivered by a broad range of programs and services that include public awareness campaigns, diagnosing hearing loss, guidance and consultation and support and job placement, promoting an accessible public space and accessibility in general and all kinds of services we offer, either people dealing with hearing loss, their families or even caretakers and all kinds of people providing services that need to know how to interact with people with hearing loss in a more effective way.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
Wow. Thank you both for all that information. I know that the majority of the listeners of the podcast… Actually there is no majority. They’re all over the world. My stats lights up the whole map. I love every single one of you listeners and from all the countries around, Asia, Europe, Africa, in South American, North America. Everywhere basically. I don’t think there’re any scientists in Antarctica listening to the podcast just yet. But basically the listeners are international. I wanted to spotlight the work that you are doing and the experience that you’ve had, Oren, with an organization. What a big difference it can make not only for the personal experience of the people who are involved, but how you are then making lasting impactful change on systems, healthcare advocacy and laws and legislation like you mentioned.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
Wherever you are in the world listening to this, check out your local organizations and see what’s happening, how to get involved and what you can get and what you can give. That’s the power of this kind of community. That’s incredible.
Damian Kelman:
It works both ways. I absolutely get it. I’m curious to hear you talk about your personal experience as well because that is exactly what we do at Bekol. We fight for the rights of people with hearing loss and with hearing impairments in all kinds of environments including the academic field. I want to make sure you get the most out of the things we’ve accomplished. If you’re going to be using the different services you’re entitled to in a good way, and you’re eligible to, either if it’s cochlear implants or hearing aids or accessibility services, that is the whole story of Bekol. That’s what we are there for.
Damian Kelman:
Actually we understand. I guess everyone with an interest in audiology understands as well that you shouldn’t work harder than you have to. If there is technology and there are services allowing you to make the most out of your experience and to get a starting point on equality of opportunities from the best place we can provide, you should use them.
Oren Dvoskin:
I’d like to say that is a lot, and we call that impressive stuff. I want to share from my personal perspective, maybe not that much at Bekol, but we talked in endocrinology about cochlear implants, about FM systems. In the end, there’s a person that’s coping with all of that, and part of being a person with a hearing impairment is you need that support. I’ve been a member of Bekol since the day it was founded. I used to be a board member of Bekol for several years. My experience with Bekol was first of all that it was my first touching point with other hearing impaired people. I barely met anyone else with a hearing loss beforehand. The first few years when I was hanging around Bekol were probably my best years socially.
Oren Dvoskin:
I suddenly had lots of friends. I used to go out to parties, and we used to go out together. I felt like a plant needs to have or tree needs to have roots in the right place in order to bloom, and that’s one of the things that I found in Bekol. From then it also progressed when I met my partner who is now my wife. Then we went to one of Bekol’s courses that they organize. It’s an immersive course about coping with hearing loss from all kinds of different aspects. Bekol was also one of the first places that I heard about the cochlear implant through a lecture. They hold these amazing events. They have a singalong event for hearing impaired individuals.
Oren Dvoskin:
People with hearing loss sometimes are afraid of singing because it sounds all messed up, and they’re not familiar with the words and the song. Bekol holds this event that’s a singalong that’s accessible for people with hearing impairments that have balloons in the audience and of course captions. It really empowers people. This is on the personal side, but also on the advocacy side, the organization has done amazing things. I paid for my first cochlear implant. It wasn’t in the Israeli health basket yet. Because of Bekol’s fight to improve legislation, then my second hearing impairment was financed by the Israeli healthcare system. There are now mandatory captions on all TV systems. They now help reduce the costs for hearing aids. They passed extremely important accessibility laws. It’s maybe contrary to being hearing impaired, but I’m the head of marketing at a cybersecurity company.
Oren Dvoskin:
Most of my day I hold calls just like these speaking with people from all over the world, and I’m using now an accessory device that I received through the workplace and lots of other accessory devices. One of the reasons I could receive that was through advocacy from Bekol. That’s just a bit of examples from this very wide breadth of activities that Damian described.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
We also have so many parents who listen to the show who have young children, babies, they’re just learning or they’ve been dealing for the last several years with their babies and children. They often have this question of what will my child’s opportunities be? Will they have friends? What about identity? All these questions that parents have in general but specifically in this topic about when we worry about our kids. I think it’s so important to hear that, that maybe the thing you’re afraid of is actually their ticket for connection and community and friendship. Going to advocacy workshops with your wife, I love that. It’s something-
Oren Dvoskin:
I totally agree, advocacy, especially for cochlear implants. Basically after I got my first CI, I bootstrapped cochlear implant advocacy in Israel. In the states, it’s very well organized, maybe too organized by the different CI companies. In Israel, we’ve got along on our own, and then we’re helped by organizations like Bekol. Just this international flavor that you talked about, I found myself consulting through cochlear Europe on how they could jumpstart CI advocacy in different regions around the world. One of the important components of doing that is teaming up with local NGOs like Bekol that would exist in different places, and there are lots of other stuff.
Oren Dvoskin:
I participated a few years ago in the deaf Olympics in the road cycling events, so totally different community experience, gathering people from all over the world. My experience as an individual with a hearing loss is that you have to connect with those communities. It gives you so much empowerment to cope with your daily life.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
I was just speaking to a student who mentioned that… a university student who mentioned that she didn’t want to go to the office of disabilities and get transcription and the classes or preferential seating or whatever else she could get. Well, that’s not relevant this semester and this year online, but anyway, captioning for Zoom, all the things that she was eligible for, and she didn’t want to do it because she was so embarrassed. She was worried that it was going to affect the perception of the teachers on how they should treat her.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
We had a conversation about the teachers will have a perception that you missed a question, that you’re not participating, that you don’t know what’s going on. That’s going to be their perception without it. When you do disclose this and get the help, it will be a different conversation, more in your benefit. So, yeah, we had the conversation a lot.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
Yes, please.
Oren Dvoskin:
I want to add on that that I think you have to have a really positive, even combative, approach. It took me twice to finish the Israeli officer’s course, the Israeli Army officer’s course. It took me a couple of years extra to finish my BA degree, and I sometimes still wake up in the middle of the night dreaming that someone audited their grading systems and found out that I actually did skip several courses. In every step along that line I unashamedly did the maximum I could leveraging organizations like Bekol and other organizations to get whatever shortcut and whatever benefit that I could just to get a slightly better starting point in whatever path I chose.
Oren Dvoskin:
People that have a hearing loss, it’s harder. It might take twice as long. You might fail more. You have to use every resource that you can and even maybe have some hoops in doing that in order to succeed sometimes just as much as your regular hearing impaired people. Don’t be ashamed about that. Bekol and Damian, they’re partners of yours. Find how they can help. Be very diligent about that.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
I remember the quote that we say sometimes for kids is your child should have the opportunity to ignore you on purpose. That they should hear you enough to say, “I’m not listening.” I have one question for you, Damian, as well about the organization. A lot in this world and the conversation we have here on the podcast often about deaf culture and deaf identity and sign language as a modality of communication and community. In what ways do you see collaboration?
Oren Dvoskin:
I’ll say the only disadvantage… Sorry, Damian. I’ll say the only disadvantage of doing that is that it’s harder afterwards to skip classes or if the teachers do see you handing over the FM and sitting in the front row, and you’re not there, they’ll say, “Hey, all my life I wore my shirt that had a place to put the FM unit, and you weren’t here today.” On the other hand, if there’s a class that does have mandatory participation, then you can say, uh-uh, that’s too hard for someone with a hearing loss. I need to be able to chill out once in a while. Sorry, Damian. Go ahead.
Damian Kelman:
Yeah, I’d like to add that also from my personal perspective as a hearing person and from the cost perspective it’s super important people are able to fulfill their potential and live their life they way they choose to. That’s one of the reasons we work for all kinds of accessibility means in all kinds of different towns let’s say. Bekol started its path as the organization for hard of hearing people in Israel and deaf people in Israel, and it is the Israeli representative of that group of people for different international organizations and forums including the World Health Organization. But for several years Bekol has included in its agenda working towards accessibility and equality of opportunities for all kinds of different deaf and deafening and hard of hearing people either if its by sign language and accessibility in translation to sign language and captions and all different kinds of accessibility means.
Oren Dvoskin:
I think you asked maybe about deaf versus hearing impaired. I had this real amazing story. Like I said, I represented Israel in the summer deaf Olympics back in 2013. It was very interesting. Sorry. We talked about deaf society versus hearing impaired, and I had an amazing experience since I represented Israel in the summer deaf Olympics in 2013 in the road cycling events. I don’t speak sign language. I tried learning a bit, but I forgot. It was very interesting because I found myself at a disadvantage point there. That was one thing, first of all because you have to disconnect everything, all the hearing devices, and without the implants I can’t hear anything at all. My coach would have to write to me on this chalkboard instructions.
Oren Dvoskin:
Then one of the really funny events I had was in the closing ceremony. I started walking around, and I met an athlete from Saudi Arabia. He ran up to me all signing and happy and all. He’s asking me in sign language where am I from, and I knew how to answer that. I said, “Israel,” which is the sign of a beard, a long beard, like hair sole. He’s signing the beard, “Israel, yeah, cool,” and signing, “great.” And then he kept on speaking and speaking, and I said, “Wait, wait, wait. I don’t speak sign language. I tried signing.”
Oren Dvoskin:
He looked at me, and he said, “Oh, are you hearing impaired?” Then he signed hearing impaired, and I said, “Yes.” And then he said, “And you’re not deaf?” I said, “Yes.” And he said, “And you don’t speak sign language?” I said, “No.” He said, “Go, go away.” Then I found myself sitting on the sidewalk with some of the Japanese athletes because apparently they have a completely different sign language system, and I couldn’t find anybody else to talk to besides them, so I joined the Japanese group.
Oren Dvoskin:
It was an amazing experience. I visit the states, and sometimes when I visit the states I sometimes feel that I’m not politically correct that I don’t sign. People see the implants. I walk up to Starbucks, and then the cashier starts signing. I’m like, “Whoa.” It’s unfortunate that I haven’t learned it, but I think the balance nevertheless of connecting with your hearing impairment is extremely important.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
Definitely. So we are going to have a link to your crowdfunding campaign in the show notes as well as a full transcript of today’s conversation as with all the podcast episodes. I just wanted to go back a minute to what we were talking about identity and with that spectrum of the deaf and hard of hearing and hearing impaired experience. In fact, there’s a lot of pushback many times when you ever use the expression hearing impaired because people will say that’s ableist, and now you’re saying there’s a problem, there’s an impairment, even hearing loss, that there’s a loss here. This is a medical model.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
I kind of always want to just listen to everyone who comes from wherever they’re coming from. If people say this is my cultural identity, the language that’s in my home and community and there is a very strong deaf identity, then that’s one experience. If someone was a late deafened adult, that’s a totally different experience. Someone has high frequency hearing loss, someone has low frequency hearing loss from mild to profound. That’s why I think that the audiology world, the experience is so varied, and we have to move away from some of the shaming on both sides of if you sign, you’re abusing your child, if you don’t do a cochlear implant, you’re abusing child. What? Everyone calm down. We want to know what the options are and then do what’s right for you, for your family.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
I really appreciate that you shared so openly, Oren, about that experience of being isolated and the other experiences of being embraced. Everyone has to find a place in life in every context, so this is one of those things that I hope to bring with the podcast, a little more acceptance, inclusion and calm down about the terms. That’s something that’s a goal for me.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
I’m really hopeful that there will be more efforts for accessibility. One of the big stories that is always about Zoom and are they going to provide the automatic captioning or not. Are they going to provide that at a cost or is it going to be free for everyone? This is one of those topics that I’ve been following the story. From every perspective, people are kind of trying to do as much as they can to help and see how life can be more connection, more conversation, more relationships because that’s the ultimate goal.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
I’m so grateful to have you today, and if you have any advice, I’d like advice from Oren and advice from Damian for any of our listeners about the world of audiology wherever they area.
Oren Dvoskin:
One of the things that’s also very unique about Bekol is that it was founded by and for many years managed also by the board of directors and their upper management by hearing impaired individuals. So the first three founders were hearing impaired. They were CEOs. The first two CEOs were hearing impaired individuals for many years. You’d never see anyone… All the board members would be hearing impaired individuals.
Damian Kelman:
[inaudible 00:33:00]. Sorry for interrupting. Because chairperson and all board members are hearing impaired people, members of the organization, we should probably add that Bekol is an organization of members first and foremost.
Oren Dvoskin:
So it’s a self-help organization. One of our board members is also actually my CI surgeon, Professor Michal Luntz, who is also a bilateral CI user. However, the landscape progresses, and the last two CEOs of Bekol have been professional. Damian’s predecessor, Vardeep, and now Damian are professional CEOs. We see the landscape is still becoming more challenging especially now with COVID. Bekol like many other NGOs, not just in Israel, but around the world actually operate different projects for governments or operate projects that depended a lot on having a face to face audience.
Oren Dvoskin:
That has also created challenges for the organization on one hand and on the other I can share that someone with a hearing loss, COVID has been tough. Suddenly everyone is wearing masks, so it’s hard to lip read. Everyone is using Zoom, and suddenly there aren’t captions in Zoom. There is still a lot of advocacy that needs to be done. People are feeling alone during the pandemic coping with their hearing loss alone, and then services from organizations like Bekol are much more needed but on the other hand like everybody else, they’ve been impacted dramatically by the situation.
Oren Dvoskin:
Now as a long time board member I can say that Bekol has always managed itself financially very, very well. But these times are challenging. We’ve been able to work through 2020 very well, but now have reached a decision that we need some help. We’ve launched a crowdfunding campaign. I’m again from marketing and a cybersecurity company, so I started telling, “Damian, hey, we should do some crowdfunding.” I saw another organization that it worked well. I sort of helped push them to that saying, “Hey, at least we’ll return the investment.” So far it’s been an impressive success.
Damian Kelman:
We need as much help as we might get because as Oren said the needs on the ground are only increasing and COVID-19 has a big part for that for sure. Challenges and difficulties have been going all over the roof. We have also had to adapt our programs and services to the new reality, to the new normal. The hearing aloud courses Bekol provides as Oren as mentioning before have in turn moved to the Zoom environment and all kinds of different services of guidance we provide has also moved mostly to the cybernetics field.
Damian Kelman:
We definitely need as much help as we might get since we can get for next year to keep providing because we understand the situation is not going back to what we knew before not only in the minds of the pandemic but also in the minds of the political crisis we’re facing in Israel. People all over the world probably don’t know, but we’ve been through a year without a government budget. That makes things very difficult for organizations like us providing the government with services that they enable other providers to do because basically they need the organizations to be there on the ground and helping people throughout their needs, their previous challenges and the new ones that we’ve dealt with in the last few months because of the pandemic.
Oren Dvoskin:
Thanks for that. I think this call is very interesting since we have four different partners here. We have you as a professional. We have Damian as part of a support organization. I have me as the user. And we have technology on the call. Every person needs to find the right balance of what works for them for optimizing all these parts in order to achieve whatever you want to achieve. Lilach as the care provider, everyone else who’s listening on this call, please get out of your box. Get out of your element. Get out of your comfort zone. You’re so significant in holding a mirror in front of your patient and showing them where they can go to and taking them along that path.
Oren Dvoskin:
A hearing aid to work well doesn’t have to be tuned perfectly. It has to help. It doesn’t always have to catch all the sounds. Damian from Bekol, you saw how we just in this conversation how organizations like these can connect the dots and empower people. You have to understand that you’re doing lots of activities, but then look at the needs of these specific people and what they need and what they want from you and work together. Myself as a user, my personal approach was always make the most out of the technology, but I could never do that without the help of you guys on this call.
Oren Dvoskin:
It’s all about a synergy and working together and in times like these during COVID, please do reach out and help your local organizations. It’s extremely important.
Damian Kelman:
Absolutely. I want to relate to what Oren was mentioning. One thing we’ve learned especially during the last few months is that it takes a lot of raising awareness among the general public as well. That’s something we can all do from our different angles and perspective. If you’re in this world of hearing loss and audiology, you can probably put out the message of how we can all of us relate in a way that’s more effective in lines of communication. Let’s start with the basic, the most basic, to allow people to understand what you have to say, to provide an environment that supports the possibility of listening or getting the message with the technology, without the technology. We all have learned the hard way the last few months how badly a situation which is medical in the first place that urges all of us to wear masks in the moment turns the reality backwards for people using technology for even years and decades.
Damian Kelman:
So it’s our responsibility all of us to make the most to enable communication each and every way we can.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
Thank you, Damian. I’m so grateful to both of you for joining us on the podcast today. If people want to reach out to you or be in touch, I think you’re both on LinkedIn. Is there anywhere else you would like to be linked anywhere? Instagram? That’s where I hang out.
Oren Dvoskin:
I’ll be glad to be contacted on LinkedIn or email. You can publish my email in the show notes. I’m always glad to help. Or Facebook. I’m always glad to speak with other adults or parents of children. I’m busy, but I’m always glad to help even for a short word. Please do reach out.
Damian Kelman:
As for Bekol, you can either go ask or just email me directly via LinkedIn or directly by email, Facebook as well, whatever is comfortable for you.
Dr. Lilach Saperstein:
Excellent. I’ll have all that linked in the show notes. Thank you so much for being a listener of the All About Audiology Podcast. If you can leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcast, that is so, so appreciated. Like I mentioned, I do hang out on Instagram at All About Audiology podcast, and I’m loving when you tag me, when you tell me you’re listening. I recently had a listener from Australia who said she had a four hour drive, and she listened to four episodes back to back. So thank you for listening, Genevieve. I would love to hear from you. Thank you for listening. This is the All About Audiology podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Lilach Saperstein.