CIICA LIVE: CI ADVOCACY: WHAT DO WE NEED?
THURSDAY 22ND JANUARY – 18:00 UK; 19:00 CET; 13:00 EST; 10:00 PST; 05:00 AEDT; 07:00 NZ
Following the success of our Advocacy conference we invite you to join us to explore further what we need for successful advocacy with Sara Rubinelli, (Professor of Health Sciences at the University of Lucerne, Switzerland), Brian Lamb (Policy Advisor at CIICA), Lidia Best (President at EFHOH, UK), Mark Laureyns (Medical Scientific Research Manager for Amplifon, Belgium), Melis Yildrim Durmaz (CI user, Turkey) and Vahishtai Daboo (INTEGRATED, India).
Whether you were in Brussels or not – you will find this a fascinating session, for parents, families, CI users including young people, professionals and industry.
So much information and the ways that different countries are making their way forward with advocacy and progress with CI
This event continues our advocacy programme by looking at one of the major challenges affecting advocates for CI. There is a misplaced perception that CIs are a costly if effective intervention. This is not helped when the sector repeats this framing when it talks about CIs. This session examines how we can create a powerful narrative that illustrates how investing in CI improves lives and is cost effective investment for society. We will look at successful examples of advocates combining evidence on the potential benefits for society in improving deaf people’s lives and how to combine passion with evidence.
Professor Sara Rubinelli will challenge us all to think about the particular challenges of Advocating for hearing loss and deafness: how do we increase Awareness and turn it to influence and action? How do we frame clear messages? How do we frame hearing loss not as a cost but as a high-return social investment? Brian Lamb will continue this message – reframing our descriptions of hearing loss not as a cost to society but as an investment, and illustrate how CIICA’s new resource “Investing in Hearing loss Improves Lives and is Cost Effective.” Go to www.ciicanet.org/resources to 
download. You can also download there CIICA’s Ten Top Tips for Advocacy to help you think about focussing your advocacy work.
If you wish to read to prepare for the session, please visit: https://ciicanet.org/resources/ci-advocacy-in-action-2025-presentations/
The programme is available here: https://ciicanet.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/CIICA-LIVE-Jan-2026-programme.pdf
Join us and share your ideas and actions!
REGISTER HERE: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/hDpFHxi9SKGVDeRogk_j7Q
