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This week is Deaf Awareness Week. Nelson Mail reporter interviewed two women from Nelson's deaf community this week: Fliss Maera and Susan Thomas. The Nelson Club has between 25 to 30 members.

Mihiarangi Marsters is living proof smoke alarms save lives. The 71-year-old great-great-grandmother escaped as flames engulfed the kitchen of her Tikipunga home. Deaf since the age of 7, it was the special flashing smoke alarm that woke her and allowed her to grab her 4-year-old great- granddaughter and flee before it was too late.

Trevor Fear, Auckland's newly-appointed deaf welfare officer talks about his experiences, the deaf community and their needs.

Members of Nelson's deaf community say cutbacks in support services from Deaf Aotearoa have left them without access to crucial interpreting help, leaving some in vulnerable situations.

Turn the light on, so I can hear what you're saying. It's an old line, but a favourite one among us hearing-impaired people, because it points up how we "hear" with our eyes as surely as blind people "see" with their fingers or their ears.

A Northland advocate is behind a campaign to get deaf-friendly fire alarms installed in public buildings, after a deaf university student was left behind during a drill. Whangarei's Kim Robinson, chairman of Deaf Action New Zealand, is driving the petition to make visual fire alarms - similar to what many deaf people have in their homes - mandatory in public buildings.

A deaf student has been left feeling hurt after he was cast aside and forgotten about following a fire drill in a university building. Had it been a proper fire emergency, he would have been in serious danger, he said and wanted to see strobe light alarms installed.

Whilst most parents face months of sleepless nights when they bring a new baby home, Jackie and Steven are confronted with the opposite problem of not being able to hear their babies crying.