His Excellency Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, Minister of Culture, Youth, and Community Development, inaugurated the "Hear my Voice Understanding Hearing Loss" conference that is held under His Excellency’s patronage and organized by Zayed University and "Kalimati Speech & Communication Center" at the Zayed University Dubai campus. The two-day conference attracts many international speakers and health care professionals, representative from several hospitals and clinics dealing with hearing impairment, UAE & GCC Deaf Associations and the UAE Deaf community.

His Excellency Sheikh Nahayan gave a speech during the conference, where he stressed on the importance of this conference, not only in raising awareness, but also in contributing to the UAE national goal of a compassionate and healthy society that welcomes and nurtures and supports the hearing impaired or the deaf.

Dr. Sulaiman Al Jassim, Vice President of Zayed University, said: “Zayed University is collaborating with various institutes in the society to embrace people with special needs. The Office of Accessibility at Zayed University offers special support to students with special needs and helps them overcome any obstacles they may face for them to succeed in their education and precede their lives normally”

Bedour Saeed Al Raqbani, Founder and Director, Kalimati Speech and Communication Center, thanked His Excellency Sheikh Nahayan for supporting this conference, and said: “I was inspired to create a place to provide quality and caring services to the deaf and the hearing impaired community in the UAE, when I felt there was a lack of quality services available for my daughter Noora”

The two-day conference will include Lectures that will cover the educational, psychological, social, emotional, and communication needs, in addition to informative talks about listening devices and assistive technology, all related to the deaf and hearing impaired. It will also include testimonies presented by deaf adults who will share their personal experiences, and a variety of workshops about Sign Language in both English and Arabic and another workshop tailored specifically to help deaf people to integrate and cope in the workplace.

The keynote speech presented by Dr. Alan Hurwitz, President of Gallaudet University based in Washington DC, USA. Dr. Hurwitz himself is deaf and presented his speech in American Sign Language (ASL).