Your pledge to KODAWest will help us continue to fulfill the mission of bringing hearing children of Deaf parents together in a peer group environment. With this unique fellowship, these "Kids of Deaf Adults" will gain confidence and wisdom from their older peers who can help them to recognize and embrace their two diverse worlds: the hearing and the Deaf.

 

Your pledge will also help us continue to provide our annual low-cost camps for our KODAs. While there, our KODA campers will participate in leadership and team building skills, and other fun camp activities. Most importantly, they partake in KODA-related symposiums, which will help them gain confidence and wisdom, and a better understanding of their identities.

 

Your pledge will ensure that we maintain another crucial service: Forums for Deaf Parents and KODA Teens. Parents will benefit from understanding the importance of a hearing child’s life such as music, and the pleasures of hearing. Experts who have extensive knowledge in bicultural living, especially in hearing/deaf cultures, will be brought in to empower these parents. KODA Teens will connect with others like themselves, in open forums where they can share their bi-cultural experiences with one another, with CODA (Adult children of Deaf Adults) moderators.

 

Your pledge will help to launch our newest branch of service: The Big CODA Little KODA program, which will provide support to KODAs, who are struggling with their identities, by pairing them up with CODAs who make strong role models. These under-resourced KODAs may be struggling with accepting the fact their parents are Deaf, that their childhood is different, or may not have funds to attend and benefit from KODAWest camps. Some may not even know what it means to be a “KODA,” and may have never interacted with another KODA. These KODAs will be paired with qualified CODA mentors in order to foster positive, healthy identities and self-acceptance as KODAs.