UH in English
Swedish Association of Hard of Hearing Young People (UH)
Unga Hörselskadade (UH) is the Swedish Association of Hard of Hearing Young People. UH have been active since 1965 and was at that time a own section in the motherogranization HRF (www.hrf.se). But in 1993 the young group in HRF wanted a own organization and broke free from HRF and got a new name. UH have been independent since 1993.
Unga Hörselskadade (UH) was founded in 1993 and our members are between 0-30 years old. UH is politically and religiously independent, but we do work with political issues that are connected to hearing impairments.
We arrange activities for our members, both locally and nation-wide. We have local groups who arrange local activities based on what the members of that group want and a national board who are in charge of arranging different activities for all our members. Both the local groups and the national board are supported by our staff that have an office in Stockholm.
Our vision is an accessible society where young people with hearing impairments are involved, independent and developing under equal conditions.
Official information
Unga Hörselskadade
Box 1068
164 25 Kista
E-mail: hej@uh.se
Our three areas
Knowledge
We Have The Knowledge
The experts on how it is to live with a hearing impairment are all the members in UH. Our members are the ones who actually know how it is; they are the ones who know how a hearing impairment affect everyday life. Our task as organization is to collect and share those stories and that knowledge. We do this through websites, social media, folders and lectures. Society needs to know more about how it is to live with a hearing impairment, and we spread that knowledge. We also strive to give our members knowledge about their rights in society, we tell them about that and help and support them in their work to claim their right
Meetings
We Believe In Meetings
One of our prime tasks is to arrange places for our members to meet. We believe in meeting others in the same situation. We believe that it is easier for a child or young adult to handle the reduced hearing when meeting others in the same situation and learning from them. We arrange camps for both children and young adults, courses in sign language, conferences and annual meetings. This gives our members from all over Sweden opportunities to meet and get to know each other and to learn from each other.
Lobbying
We Influence By Lobbying
By active lobbying toward politicians and authorities we ensure that all the knowledge we have gathered from our members does not go to waste. Through meetings, debate articles and information material we strive to have a dialogue with those who make the decisions. Together with other organizations we suggest changes to those in power, we discuss our issues with politicians and authorities. We work for equal rights, inclusion and accessibility.
Our top issues are Bilingualism, An available school, accessibility in society
Bilingualism – all hard of hearing children must early in their lives be given the opportunity to learn both sign language and their native spoken tongue.
An available school – schools must be available for children that are hard of hearing, regardless if they choose a special school or the regular public school.
Accessibility in society – a corner stone in a democratic society is that everyone has a right to participate and to contribute. Society should be accessible for all, hearing impairment or not.
The value of international work
UH also does international projects and collaborations. We are a member of the international umbrella organization IFHOHYP (International Federation Of Hard Of Hearing Young People). We also have separate projects for collaboration and information exchange in different countries through other organizations such as MyRight.
We see big value in collaborating with organizations world wide. We can learn from each other; we see international collaborations as opportunities to spread our knowledge and also to learn about how others work with the issues we have in common. We also firmly believe that we together can bring our issues further up on the international agenda, compared to what we can do separately.