The moment you touch something … it starts speaking to you in shapes, textures, temperature. It’s telling you about a world well beyond the one words can describe. Your fingers can respond to the touch with gentle movements, caressing or powerful pressure. They can draw things while making explanations. They could be the pencil writing stories as well as the rubber erasing them to tell more tales. The stories you write touching human skin are indeed the Story of Life of deafblind people. Their sensitivity is the page you’ve been writing your stories on which can handle any story told. It could well be the pencil writing out the description of the World beyond the line of Vision. Sensitivity is speaking out at the workshop on the Alternative Ways of Communication with Deafblind People held by the NADbBg from 12^th May to 13^th May 2018.

Dear Readers of We Hear You, you might remember last year’s event in Plovdiv devoted to the demonstration of ways of communication with deafblind people. The Norwegian methods sparked the interest of a great deal of people, so they asked to be taught how to use them in practical situations. The National Association of the Deafblind in Bulgaria (NADbBg) won a grant in 2012, which allowed it to host an education event for interpreters of deafblind people. Unfortunately, just five professionals were given the opportunity to learn the alternative ways of communication mentioned above. The number of knowledgeable professionals prepared to work with deafblind people is far from being enough to meet the needs of the deafblind people in Bulgaria. What’s more, they’ve never worked with children before. But this is what’s going to happen now.

Dear Readers, we’ll introduce you to a very, very brave boy named Georgi Skordev. He lives in a world we know little to practically nothing about. Georgi was so eager to come into our world that he was born prematurely to his loving parents who had been excitedly expecting him. This caused him to lose his sight and hearing. He is both deaf and blind, but a very sensitive child. He’s a 10-year-old guy from a seaside city who has a lot to tell us. However, his stories have so far remained untold because his means of communication are still unknown to us and we can barely come to a reaching point. That’s why, his mother is speaking out for him.

I’ve known Maria Popova (or Maya, as the people close to her know her) for ages. But we’ve only managed to meet up in person along with Goshko at the International Conference ‘See the Silence, Hear the darkness’ held in Plovdiv last year. She was there to share her experience as a parent of a deafblind child. Unfortunately, we barely had the time to speak about all the matters that concern us. This is why I’m expressing my sincere gratitude on her willingness to speak out through We Hear You.