Welcome
From: Anita
Date: 9/25/99
Time: 7:05:26 AM
Remote Name: 130.244.49.95
Comments
Let me be the first to welcome you to this page. I'll try to be on line a few times a day, but I'll be travelling a
lot, so please be patient.
Keep talking!
Sweden's Story
From: Mike Hughes - Speak Easy Canada
Date: 10/2/99
Time: 5:51:31 PM
Remote Name: 207.179.135.98
Comments
Anita,
Your paper made very interesting reading. Congratulations on the successes of the Swedish group and, in
particular, your leadership role. You've managed to accomplish a great deal and are certainly on the right track
to make even more gains! As we discussed earlier, I hope that you enjoyed your tour of Speak Easy Inc's
website at http://www.speakeasycanada.com. We posted our other pamphlets as you requested so that most,
not all, of our pamphlets are available online. Feel free to translate them and publish in any language of your
choice. For our records, I'd appreciate receiving a copy - We'd like to see how they look in another tongue.
Also as you requested, we are sending you a complete copy of our information kit, including a copy of our
monthly 28-page magazine, "Speaking Out," plus our "Speak Easy Store" catalogue, and other information.
Feel free to reprint any information you find appropriate. By the way, in the new year we'll be organizing
publication of Speak Easy's 200th issue of "Speaking Out." A REMARKABLE ACCOMPLISHMENT! Once
you've had an opportunity to review the information package we've sent you, perhaps you'd like to submit
something for publication in this Special Issue. You're doing great! (To quote the cliche...) Keep up the good
work!
Mike Hughes Ex. Dir. Speak Easy Inc.
International Stuttering Awareness Day
Online Conference panel, ISAD 1998 - some
success stories
Re: Sweden's Story
From: Anita
Date: 10/5/99
Time: 5:08:01 AM
Remote Name: 212.151.44.216
Comments
Thanks a lot for your kind words, Mike! Yes, I've received the package and of course I'll let you know and
let you copy any translation we'll use. That counts for any other association who wants leaflets in Swedish.
We're working on new one's and as soon as they are ready they are available for other associations who
wants information about stuttering in Swedish.
We're very curious about this year's results of the ISAD and we're ready for it!!! I'll take a look at your
homepage, as you're doing a great job yourself and it's always interesting to learn from what you're doing.
Israeli Military Service
From: Ira Zimmerman
Date: 10/3/99
Time: 4:05:45 PM
Remote Name: 152.163.204.51
Comments
Benny,
Are stutterers exempt from the required military service in Israel? If not, are stutterers discriminated against in
the military?
Re: Israeli Military Service
From: Anita
Date: 10/5/99
Time: 5:09:23 AM
Remote Name: 212.151.44.216
Comments
Ira, this is Sweden you're addressing and the only battle we fight is one with snowballs! :-)
Re: Israeli Military Service
From: Benny Ravid
Date: 10/6/99
Time: 10:17:17 AM
Remote Name: 212.3.193.107
Comments
The PWS in Isreal are doing the Military sevice as all other people. In general we haven't seen any problems
with this.
Benny
Re: Israeli Military Service
From: Anita
Date: 10/7/99
Time: 8:10:32 AM
Remote Name: 212.151.91.77
Comments
That's great! In a progressed country like Sweden, guys are denied their military service because of their
stutter. I know of two cases a few years ago, which have even caused the medias attention. I haven't heared
of any case since. I have heared of cases where people lost their jobs or didn't get the job. In one case a child
didn't get his health insurance! Pity they don't want to come forward and/or make it a case....
AMBI: The Israeli support group for people who stutter
From: Russ Hicks
Date: 10/7/99
Time: 3:47:21 PM
Remote Name: 209.245.253.173
Comments
Hello Benny!
I just read your introduction in the panel discussion "ISAD 1998 - some success stories" and visited your
home page of AMBI. I'm impressed - and I all of sudden realize who (and where) you are. And the true
international nature of this conference! Wow! It's good to know all the activity of people all over the world
relating to stuttering!
You mentioned the social nature of your meetings. Yes, we experience the same. The social interactions
within our NSA, the National Stuttering Association, are extremely important. You should plan to come to
one of our conventions sometime!
You also commented that you have abandoned the small monthly meetings in favor of larger every-six-months
meetings. We find that we form extremely valuable friendships at our monthly meetings and they are
expanded upon greatly at our yearly conventions. That is, both our monthly meetings and our yearly
conventions are very valuable.
Can you expand upon what you are currently doing in this area? Are you having monthly meetings anywhere
these days? And what are your plans for the future?
Good luck in your work, Benny. I'd love to visit Israel some day!!!
Russ Hicks
Re: AMBI: The Israeli support group for people who stutter
From: Benny Ravid
Date: 10/8/99
Time: 1:39:29 PM
Remote Name: 212.150.38.203
Comments
Russ Hicks
First of all a small correction. AMBI is the Israeli Stuttering Association (the Israeli NSA). The Tel Aviv Self
help group is just a part of what AMBI is.
Please visit the new AMBI web: http://www.angelfire.com/il/bravid/Ambi.html and press
“English” on the right (if you did few days before, do it again it is new).
The international nature of the ISAD conference is really exciting. This is an opportunity to express my
gratitude to Judy Kuster and Michael Sugerman for organizing such exciting event.
Our next AMBI event is ISAD conference which will take place in October 21. Israeli minister of education
promised to participate and this is… Beyond my dreams…
Here is the conference program
7:00 – 8:00 Group Discussions: Consumers have an opportunity to discuss stuttering with local
speech language pathologists
8:00 - 8:45 Welcome and Introductions- Yossey Sarid, Minister of Education MP Martha Ramon, Chair,
Israeli Self-Help Center Benny Ravid, Chair, AMBI
8:45 - 9:00 Break
9:00 - 10:00 Featured speaker: Icik Gilat "Interviewing Parents of Stuttering Children"
10:00 - 10:20 Break
10:20 - 11:00 Entertainment by Tuvia Tsafir show
11:00 Closing Ceremony
Uri Vardi, actor on " name of show"
Here is a small presentation of the persons mentioned in above program.
Mr. Yossy Sarid is a Member of Parlament (MP) and the Minister of education. Mr Tuvia Tsafir is a famous
Israeli actor. Mr. Icik Gilat is a professional manager of ERAN organization providing a first mental aid. Mr
Uri Vardi is a young and beautiful actor in a popular Israeli soap TV opera.
As you see I’m excited and proud that such distinguish people are participating our ISAD conference.
And one thing more. As you can see the above program is written in excellent English. This English belongs
to Michael Sugerman who corrected my English. Thank you very much Michael.
We have currently two kinds of AMBI events. One is the ISAD conference and the other one is an AMBI
meeting which is scheduled to May.
The Tel Aviv Self Help Group for PWS meets every other week. In each meeting we have about 20
participants most of them are PWS and the rest are SLPs , SLP students and other professionals. The next
meeting of the Self Help Group will take place this Wednesday and this time we’ll have a lecture given
by a guest Rabbi. Hope it’ll be interesting. You are all invited.
The main reason that we’ve abandoned the AMBI Monthly meetings is that we have meetings of the
Tel Aviv Self Help Group and that seems currently enough .
I’ll be happy to see you in Israel Russ!
And, I promise to come to one of NSA conventions.
Benny
Re: AMBI: The Israeli support group for people who stutter
From: Anita S. Blom
Date: 10/15/99
Time: 6:45:05 AM
Remote Name: 212.151.89.133
Comments
It's so great what you're doing there, Benny, I really admire your efforts and persistence to spread the word!
Re: AMBI: The Israeli support group for people who stutter
From: Benny Ravid
Date: 10/16/99
Time: 1:56:42 PM
Remote Name: 212.25.76.233
Comments
Thanks Anita.
I'm looking forward and planing an International convention here in Israel...
Benny
ISAD 1999 - Using the experience
From: Benedikt Benediktsson
Date: 10/8/99
Time: 6:46:20 AM
Remote Name: 194.144.199.10
Comments
To all
I wonder how the various organizations and self help groups are going to use the experience from ISAD 1998
for this years ISAD. In Sweden, you are clearly using the expeience from last year to really use the potentioanl
given by this event and I am impressed by the effort and outcome of last years ISAD in Sweden. What about
other countries. In Iceland, we only had a couple of newspaper articles last year. This year we are having an
open house, inviting as many people as we can to discuss stuttering. There are 2 or 3 newspaper articles
planned and we hope to be able to have at least one radio interview. Tv is harder to get interested but we will
try. Our emphasis is on the stuttering children and the recently established parent group.
Re: ISAD 1999 - Using the experience
From: Anita
Date: 10/8/99
Time: 6:54:09 AM
Remote Name: 212.151.42.180
Comments
Dear Benedikt
Did you get any reactions from the media about the wonderful Nordic seminar in August? If not, you can use
that to point out to the media they missed a great opportunity to learn more about stuttering and the people
having this disability, so that on the 22 August, they can repare that.... :-) Will the homepage with pictures
and reports be on line before the ISAD?
Re: ISAD 1999 - Using the experience
From: Benedikt
Date: 10/8/99
Time: 7:12:02 AM
Remote Name: 194.144.199.10
Comments
Anita
We have not had any media coverage of the Nordic seminar last august, but we will use it to try to get
attention. And yes, the homepage with pictures and information from the seminar will be up very soon.
Re: ISAD 1999 - Using the experience
From: Anita
Date: 10/11/99
Time: 7:23:13 AM
Remote Name: 212.151.92.19
Comments
The Homepage is wonderful and brings back good feelings. Do announce the URL to all!
Re: ISAD 1999 - Using the experience
From: Benedikt Benediktsson
Date: 10/11/99
Time: 7:41:46 AM
Remote Name: 194.144.199.10
Comments
Dear Anita Thank you for the comment on the hoepage. For those of you who don't know about the nordic
conferences, it is an annual conference/seminar held in the nordic countries, Denmark, Norway, Finland,
Sweden and Iceland. This year it was Malbjorg in Iceland that hosted the conference. A website
http://rvik.ismennt.is/~benedikt/nordisk.html has been set up with pictures and text from the conference and a
bus trip that was organized after the conference. There is more material to be expected in there, the next
weeks.
Re: ISAD 1999 - Using the experience
From: Kathrin Hšlzl
Date: 10/14/99
Time: 3:28:42 AM
Remote Name: 138.232.1.228
Comments
We, the Austrian selfhelp group, figured out that you have to keep nagging all the time to get the TV
interrested. Writing a letter is not enough, it is best if you call about a week later and ask if they have recieved
the letter and so on.
But what we found out is best for TV, is when you find out that someone from a TV station is a stutterer or
has one in his family. We found out that one woman in the Austrian TV station had a stuttering child. She then
helped us to get into her show and from now on we can say, we have already been there and that opens the
door for other TV stations and shows... Finding such a peron is not easy but when it works it is great.
Kathrin
Re: ISAD 1999 - Using the experience
From: Anita S. Blom
Date: 10/15/99
Time: 6:48:17 AM
Remote Name: 212.151.89.133
Comments
In Sweden we were lucky to have an 80-year young newly active politician to finally come out of the closet
and she is now the chair of the Stockholm chapter, giving interviews and seminars. Yes, we need famous
people and people who have some sort of power or connections to get through. Sad, but true. Let's hope the
researchers come up with something, as that mostly works to get attention.
Brazil
From: Stefan Hoffmann, ISA, China
Date: 10/17/99
Time: 6:08:49 AM
Remote Name: 203.93.18.184
Comments
Dear Mrs. Furquim de Andrade, I am Stefan from Intl. Stuttering Association, Outreach Working Group. As
our contacts in Latin America are not very developed yet, I like to ask you if you could give me an short
update about the question, if in your country PWS already organized themselves in self-help groups. Beatriz
in Argentina does really wonderful work and I can imagine that in Brazil there must be activities too. Are there
contqact email addresses in Brazil? You may write to me at Obrigado! Stefan
Hoffmann
Re: Brazil
From: Claudia
Date: 10/19/99
Time: 6:24:20 AM
Remote Name: 200.230.217.154
Comments
Stefan,
Unfortunately we haven't had any group support in Brazil yet. Our Lab is planning to do something about it
but I don't know when it will be possible and how to start. If you could help us... My e.mail is:
crfdandr@mandic.com.br Thank you for your interest, Claudia
Re: Brazil
From: Benny Ravid
Date: 10/20/99
Time: 9:45:00 AM
Remote Name: 194.90.50.36
Comments
Hi Claudia and Stefan.
I'll do my best to help you in Brazil. But to start with something there must be at least one person ready to
devote its time to this. Are you that person Claudia?...
Benny
Re: Brazil
From: Claudia
Date: 10/20/99
Time: 2:43:42 PM
Remote Name: 200.196.69.105
Comments
Yes Benny. Our Lab is very small and we haven't had any support from University but we could try..
Thank you, bye, Claudia
Re: ISAD 1999 - Using the experience
From: Kathrin Hšlzl
Date: 10/19/99
Time: 4:17:43 AM
Remote Name: 138.232.112.33
Comments
Anita, you are right, it is sad but true. But let's really hope for a breakthrough in research. That is never
wrong.
Kathrin