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Ali-Hope Foundation is the only foundation in Israel that trains guide dogs in order to improve the quality of life of deaf-blind people in functioning better. All of this is accomplished by a handful of devoted volunteers with no governmental support. In a world of silence and darkness, the guide dogs bring hope in a new way. In a quiet and dark world, Hope (dog) has a tail (is happy wags) A dog is considered man’s best friend, but to a deaf-blind person it’s a friend on four legs that changes life for the better. The volunteers of the Ali Hope Foundation train guide dogs that help the deaf and deaf-blind people in their daily tasks and leads them to new independence. In the first few minutes after entering the well kept training center of Ali Hope Foundation, in the Na'ale Settlement, the immediate thing that attracts one's attention is the silence communication between Tamara Meirovich, a deaf and visually challenged woman and Sol, young Labrador Retriever dog. Tamara calls Sol’s name in sign language and the dog gets up quickly from her seat and runs happily to Tamara. It’s not magic, it’s a unique technique for training guide dogs to help deaf-blind people. According to the estimates, out of a population of about 10,000 deaf people, about 1,100 of them are both deaf and blind. Meirovich, deaf from birth with Usher Syndrome, didn’t let her physical handicap prevent her from fulfilling her dream to train dogs for deaf-blind people and help them improve their tasks in life. “Until the beginning of the millennium, I shut myself up in my house and suffered from sorrow and very deep depression due to my vision handicap that got worse over the years”, says Meirovich, who lives in Ganei Tikva. After an accident on the road, I understood that I have to be assisted by a guide dog. When I got Pepsi, a Golden Retriever, my life changed completely. I became more independent, and I decided to dedicate my life to helping other people who suffer from hearing and vision handicaps to get out of the bubble and live a complete life. With the help of a translator and much hard work, she successfully finished her dog training studies at the “Wingate” Institute. During that time, she met Aliza Alpern who noticed that Tamara’s aged dog was coming to the retirement stage. Aliza decided to train for her a special and energetic dog named Hope. “A guide dog that suits a blind person is completely different from a dog that is trained for the needs of a deaf-blind person,” she explains. “Aliza taught Hope not just to accompany me outside the house, but to help me with daily tasks - to notice if someone knocks on the door, if the telephone is ringing and especially if an object is falling in the kitchen or if I can’t find my keys when I want to lock the house.” The meeting with Aliza has changed Meirovich's life, but a short time after she got Hope. Aliza died from cancer. Despite the tragic loss, Meirovich decided to continue Aliza’s way of training by establishing Ali (Ali-za) Hope (dog) foundation with Tracy Van Eek, also deaf from birth. The foundation is two years old and intended for bringing sounds and sights to the people who live in a world of silence and darkness. Picture: Tamara and Sol in a training lesson Another kind of communication Deaf-blind people communicate only by sign language and the communication with Tamara and Tracy is excellent. According to Tamara, while a guide dog for blind people is trained by the voice. Their challenge is to train the dog to use sign language. “It takes me almost two years to train a dog for a deaf-blind person that will know to recognize signs like: sit, lay, stop, bring object that fell, recognize that the water had boiled in the kettle, or when a baby is crying in the house," she says. "The dog is not only supposed to be man’s eyes, but his ears and I’m glad that his hearing sense is very advanced.” Meirovich and Van Eek dedicate a few hours each day to train the dogs and invest a lot in the maintenance of the building and caring for the dogs and running the deaf blind activities. In the little foundation there is handful of volunteers and the two women not only need more hands, but also economic resources in order to continue in their work. Picture: Naomi signs to the dog to sit Van Eek, a computer instructor at the deaf association for deaf–blind people, collects deaf–blind people from all over the country for activities in the foundation each week. “These meetings not only improve their mood, but also expose them to the dogs’ world. The moment they arrive at the base and we work with them, they don’t want to return home”, says a laughing Van Eek. “It’s a pleasure to see the change that occurs to them thanks to God who made animals”. Naomi, a deaf and partially blind woman, lives in Ashkelon, has also been attending the foundation center the past months and takes active part in the process of training Sol. “I dream of the moment when I can have a dog of my own, that will take care of me and will help me with my personal needs”, says Naomi. “At that moment it will be my eyes and ears. I would stop being bored and closed up in my house. It will be big fun to be with a dog that understands me despite the limitations.” The dream of these two women is to establish a bigger center where they can rear and train a larger number of dogs and have further activities for the deaf-blind. “Many deaf challenged and deaf-blind people are forced to wait a long time to get a guide dog and suffer from a challenging and very lonely life”, they say. “It’s not the right term that people say that dogs are the man’s best friends. For us it’s a real change in life.”
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