Thursday, January 21 2010
RACHEL BROWNE meets the man speaking out on the rights of the 'hearing impaired'.
Alex Jones answers the door of his tasteful Paddington terrace with a welcoming smile, a cheery hello and an offer of tea or coffee. So far, so normal. The only hints of impairment are hearing aids discreetly protruding from each ear. You would never guess Jones is deaf and that's just the way he likes it. The way he sees it, life is more about what he can do than what he can't.
"I am a deaf person, so what?" he says via his long-time interpreter, Michelle Maguire. "I can do anything except hear. Society is disabled with me more than I am disabled with them. I am OK. I just get on and do what I need to do, but people need to change their way of thinking in terms of how they deal with us."
Born deaf, the 35-year-old is used to people making assumptions about hearing impairment.
"The first thing people say is 'Can you read Braille?'," he says with a laugh.
"I get that a lot. People say, 'So you have a dog to help you?' People assume disabilities are all in one big pot. If they meet a deaf person, they think maybe you are blind as well.
"It's really just because people are ignorant, I guess. It's fine and it's funny in a way. I don't take it too seriously. You have to laugh about it."
There are 3.2 5 million deaf and hearing impaired people in Australia - more than 15 per cent of the population. The number is expected to grow thanks to an ageing population and a generation addicted to iPods.
"People are often surprised by just how big [the number] is. I guess it's because the deafness is not visible; it is a hidden disability. People forget that we're out there."
This is a situation Jones intends to change. He may not be able to hear but he is speaking up. As the chairman of the peak body for hearing impairment, the Deafness Forum of Australia, Jones is lobbying for improved services including the National Disability Insurance Scheme proposal, under which disabled people would receive financial assistance from taxpayers through general revenue or via the Medicare insurance levy.
"That would allow anyone with a disability in Australia to have access to whatever they need," he explains.
"I have just bought these hearing aids which cost $7000 out of my own pocket. They're not cheap and I need them for my work. If we could get something like this up and running, there would be so many opportunities for deaf and hearing-impaired people. There are a lot of employers out there who won't hire a deaf person because they don't have the money to provide access."
Jones and his business partner Tony Abrahams have formed a company called Access Innovation Media, which provide solutions for deaf and hearing-impaired Australians - including high school students and television viewers through a captioning service on Foxtel.
"It's very exciting, really," he says. "I just think about how much things have changed since I was growing up and they're improving all the time."
Jones was born 35 years ago in the US city of Detroit. His parents are both deaf but he has three brothers who can hear. As a child, he admits it took him a while to accept he had inherited a genetic condition.
"When I was growing up my parents said to me, 'You're deaf,'" he says.
"I looked at my parents and said, 'No. Uh-uh. No.' I looked across at my brothers and said, 'I am hearing like them.' My parents would say, 'No, you're deaf like us.'
"I tried to get by, by saying I was hard of hearing. I tried that one for a long time. But when I was about 11 or 12, I realised that I wasn't actually hard of hearing, I was deaf." A bright child, Jones learned to read and write early and attended a mainstream school before switching to a school for the deaf in Washington DC. During that period he also spent time as an exchange student in Bangkok before finishing high school.
He had a choice between going to Gaulladet University, a tertiary institution for the deaf or attending New York University. He chose New York.
For someone who held a childhood ambition of becoming an actor, New York fulfilled a long-held dream.
"Acting was my passion and NYU had a fantastic theatre school," he says.
"It gave me a lot of confidence as an individual because at the theatre school I had to speak a lot. I had to use my voice. I had to sing as part of the program. It helped me to be very versatile with my voice."
He was recruited by the Australian Theatre of the Deaf, arriving in Sydney 13 years ago.
He honed his craft on stage and in TV series such as Blue Heelers, Fireflies, and All Saints as well as working behind the scenes as the director of the Sydney Deaf Festival in 2000 and the 2005 Deaflympic Games Cultural Festival.
Over the years, he developed a circle of both hearing and deaf friends, including his best friend Leonie Jackson, with whom he has a two-year-old son, Tobian.
"She has been my best friend for 10 years," he says. "We live together like flatmates. We have a fantastic arrangement, both for her and myself. I think we're both great parents to our son."
Tobian is also deaf, however Jones believes the improvements being made for hearing impaired people now will mean his son will have vastly different future.
"I look at my son and I think what I am doing now is really going to benefit his future, it will open all sorts of doors for him."
For a copy of the Newspaper article please click here. 
