As a young person with deafblindness, Madalina has learned to overcome challenges and advocate for her rights following support from Sense International. 

Madalina is a young woman with deafblindness. She attended a school where Sense International Romania was training young people with deafblindness and sensory impairments to become digital typographers. Joining the course, she learned skills to professionally produce a range of materials, including leaflets and magazines. “The workshop has developed my creative skills”, she explains. “Also, during this time, I trained my abilities to communicate and work as a team.” 

In addition to teaching valuable skills for employment, the workshop began Madalina’s learning journey about deafblindness and her own abilities. “Deafblindness was an abstract word for me, as it is for many people to whom I mention this word,” she says. “Fortunately…I was the luckiest person because, as soon as I started this journey, wonderful people opened doors for me to another world.” 

Madalina participated in a range of activities for young people with deafblindness, including camps designed to improve mobility and orientation skills, and workshops on leadership and advocacy. These activities had a significant personal impact, as she found inspiration in the achievements of other people with deafblindness. 

“I had the opportunity to personally meet Professor Vasile Adamescu [a man with deafblindness], a moment that anchored my dreams and certainly guided me in choosing the domain of special education,” Madalina explains. “Behind his success, there was a man on whom society imposed limits with the term ‘disability’, but he showed everyone was wrong after he proved that deafblindness is an ability.”  

Madalina is now a volunteer and advocate for Sense International Romania. She has recently graduated from university, where she studied special education. 

“What do I want?” she says, “I wish for a world with no barriers and no prejudice.”