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From: Joseph LUKONG, Cameroon, Africa
Date: 10/5/01
Time: 2:26:12 PM
Remote Name: 134.29.30.79
Russ,
I am from Cameroon, Africa. I do not have access to web pages so Judy Kuster is forwarding papers to me by email and posting some questions for me.
Your article was very good and I have learnt many things from there that are going to help me restructure our meetings. Your article contained some useful information as to what we can do during our meetings. I have already printed them out and I will still go over them during the week end. Thank you for that article we know now the kind of chicken that can be presented to my members, simple, sweet, etc meetings should be participatory and we should encourage TALKING rather than preaching as is done in churches where one can not contradict what the pastor or preacher has to say. That is interesting . We shall try to see what we can do with our 51 Member group as far as grouping them into small groups of 5 each. Formerly our meetings were always held in one single room with all the members present. We shall try that your system and see how it works .
I do have some questions though. Please don't consider my questions as funny for I am of a different culture and region and what is new with us here might be something of old fashioned over there. There are still many things that I heard for the first time in the articles Judy sent. She has promised to forward whatever you post in response to my questions.
1 What is toastmasters?
2 Was the national Humorous speech contest of 1996 limited only to stutterers or how did it come about that you performed better than fluent speakers?
3 What is required of one to attend the level of DTM ?
4 Do you think that therapy is indispensable as a 'CURE' to stuttering? What of people who have never had any form of therapy in their lives?
5 You teach your children that any differences they see in people are'OKAY' and that they should not judge or laugh others. Do you really believe that stuttering persons are OKAY like other beings? Don't you think that there is something lacking in us that makes us 'UNOKAY' ?
6 You said again something that looks interesting to me. You said ' I believe stuttering is not bad, people who stutter have a right to be treated with some respect - MY OWN IDEA ABOUT THAT. To me those are just general principles that are laid down and are supposed to but are never respected. For example this incidence happened to our country of late. One of the members of our association SCAC got her fiancÈe who loved her very much. She is a stuttererer and the parents of the boy refused their son from getting married to this lady because she is a stutterer on the pretext that she was to transmit the stuttering virus to the would- be-children. The whole affair ended there because here your parents must accept the lady to whom You are to get married to . In this case what can you say that her rights were respected? We have raised the issue with the local Human Rights organisation and nothing has been yet.
Once more thank you for your article.