Alice does important work as a Coordinator of the Youth Leadership Initiative (YLI) with the Disability Foundation.

The YLI is a research project that aims to identify attitudinal barriers to post-secondary youth with disabilities transitioning from studies to the workplace and produce solutions for youth and employers. Her many duties include creating marketing materials, writing funding reports, and coordinating new team members.

Alice is partially sighted and needs high contrast and good lighting to see.

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Rod runs a business with his wife in Cranbrook.

“It is very important that we communicate well with each other and with our customers,” he says.

However, his hearing aids were over five years old, and he noticed he was making mistakes.

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Mary is a manager at an interior design and cleaning company in Kelowna that works with real estate companies.

An old fracture on her left ankle causes her pain, and makes her favour her right foot, which in turn causes her pain on her right side, affecting her shoulders, neck, and leg.

“Long periods of standing on my feet or heavy lifting bending down can cause discomfort which affects my ability to work,” she explains.

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To do his job as a delivery driver for a grocery store in Terrace, Robert needed hearing aids in working order. From listening to his GPS to know where he was headed for a delivery, to communicating with customers over the phone or behind doors when delivering to people with COVID, Robert needed to be able to hear.

“I did have hearing aids prior, but they were faulty, and I couldn’t use them,” he shares. “In fact, during my training, the trainer had to repeat constantly.”

He needed new hearing aids, and his wife had found out about WorkBC Assistive Technology Services online as way to help fund the hearing aids. He decided to apply and was quickly approved.

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Kimberley works as a customer service agent in West Kelowna for an online health company.

She has high frequency hearing loss. She learned about WorkBC Assistive Technology Services from NexGen Hearing, and decided to apply.

With help from funding by WorkBC Assistive Technology Services, Kimberley was able to purchase a new pair of hearing aids.

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Douglas works as a support worker at a treatment centre in Chilliwack. He has hearing loss and it was making it hard to do his job.

“Obviously, if I can’t hear my clients, I don’t have a job. And obviously, you lose the confidence of your clients, you lose confidence in yourself,” he shares. “I need to be able to hear people speak, and I need to be able to hear when we’re filling out intake forms — very important that I’m hearing the proper drugs they’re using.”

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Since immigrating to Canada, Aliakbar has had a hard time finding employment. He faced a language barrier, a lack of Canadian education, and hearing loss.

“I used to work as truck driver for 20 years in my home country and need help to find a similar job here in Canada,” he shares. “I have profound hearing loss and it had significant negative impact in my job search activities and also my ability to learn a new language, English.”

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Steve works as a paralegal in the Lower Mainland. The job is front-facing and services-oriented — he is responsible for producing documents for lawyers that clients need, as well as interacting with clients.

Steve also has hearing loss.

“While the loss itself is relatively mild, it makes it quite difficult to hear others. As my job revolves around being able to listen to others, whether receiving instructions from co-workers or talking to a client, it is very important for me to be able to hear properly,” he shares.

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Gaynor is a retail worker in the North Okanagan, doing customer service, stocking shelves, and cashiering. She has hearing loss.

“It impacted me in every aspect,” she explains. “I had customers approaching me all day with questions, I had co-workers talking to me, we had pages overhead that sometimes affected me, we had group meetings that I was involved with, so hearing in a situation like that was everything, it could get frustrating sometimes.

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