Sasakawa International Scholars - Ardavan Guity

Name: Ardavan Guity

Country: Iran

Field of Study: Deaf Studies

Ardavan Guity is from Tehran, Iran. He is from a Deaf family and went to a school for deaf for most of his life. His work in activism started at an early age–at age 12, he was a UNICEF delegate for children and teenagers with disabilities. In this role he gave a presentation at the UNICEF conference in Tehran, Iran. Later he founded an association for Deaf youth under the Iranian National Council of the Deaf. In this role, he participated as a representative for Asian Youth Deaf Camp in Miyazaki, Japan. After learning from this experience, he founded the first Iranian Youth Deaf camp and has overseen its annual gatherings. Ardavan is passionate about spreading awareness to Deaf youth about the richness of their language and culture. Later, Ardavan also served as a delegate for the 2011 World Federation of the Deaf Congress in South Africa. Following this, he was invited to Turkey to teach interpreters about International Sign Language at the 5th Conference of Sign Language in Ankhara. After getting a degree in computer science from a hearing university in Iran, he decided to come to Gallaudet to further his education in Linguistics and Deaf studies, where he continues to actively support Deaf communities around the world. Currently, he is a senior Deaf Studies major.

His goal is to continue to advocate for the Iranian Deaf community and support education and awareness for Deaf people, especially children, in developing countries.