Thirteen members of the Maui deaf community received their COVID-19 booster shot and two got their first vaccine shot Monday in a vaccination event coordinated by Maui Economic Opportunity’s Maui Independent Living Center.
Most of those attending the event at the state Department of Health Maui District Health Office Wailuku Clinic were members of the Maui Deaf Club. One other deaf person could not get the booster because six months had not passed since vaccination.
Nani Watanabe, coordinator of the MEO Maui Independent Living Center, worked with the Health Department on scheduling and organizing the clinic. The Health Department provided sign language interpreters.
Earlier in the year, Watanabe organized vaccine clinics for the deaf community with the Health Department.
Maui Independent Living Center’s mission is to ensure that persons with disabilities are full social, civic and economic partners, both within their families and in a fully accessible community, and to create access and choice. There is no income criteria for services.
To contact Watanabe, call (808) 243-4328 or email [email protected]
*About Maui Economic Opportunity*
Maui Economic Opportunity, Inc., is a nonprofit agency that’s part of the national Community Action Partnership network, whose goal is to help low income individuals and families and disenfranchised people help themselves and transform their lives. Chartered in 1965, MEO offers more than 40 programs that assist low income people, kupuna, youths, persons with disabilities, immigrants and other disenfranchised individuals. MEO runs the Human Services transportation program and the Maui Bus paratransit system and Head Start preschools, as well as programs that offer kupuna socialization and information; rent, mortgage and utility assistance; Spanish interpretation and translation; entrepreneurial and financial basics; inmate reintegration into the community after release; and youth anti-drinking, -bullying and -suicide prevention. For more information about the entire array of programs, visit meoinc.org or call (808) 249-2990.
