Breaking the Silence: Three Women, One Powerful Conversation on Hearing Loss and Identity
In a moving and inspiring presentation at our September meeting, three African American women—Erika Jones, Vanessa Branch, and Nemiah Hobbs—shared their deeply personal journeys with hearing loss. Their stories and experiences, filled with resilience, advocacy, and transformation, illuminated the power of community and the importance of embracing one’s identity, even when it’s invisible to the world.
Please learn more about our presenters below and with the recording hosted on our YouTube channel.
Watch Presentation
Topics by presenters
- Vanessa: “Why We Don’t Seek Help: Cultural Barriers in Black Families”
- Erika: “Finding Your Tribe: Building Black Hearing Loss Community Online”
- Nemiah: “Our Community, Our solutions:Overcoming Financial Barriers to Hearing Care”
Presenters:
Erika Jones is someone who is new to the hard of hearing community but not new to hearing loss, living with sensorineural bilateral hearing loss. She is especially excited to explore this identity that she hid from for years. Erika is an Emotional Intelligence Performance Coach, drawing on her experience with hearing loss and her journey overcoming drug addiction.
She spreads awareness about her life on social media and in her training sessions, hoping to break down the walls of stigma around hearing loss and be a positive example of everyday life with an invisible disability.
Erika is a co-parenting mom of two children, ages 15 and 8, and they currently live in LA. She also recently joined the HLAA-LA chapter.
Follow Erika on Instagram (@earth2erika365)
Connect with Erika on Facebook (@erikajones)
Vanessa Branch is a Black content creator, lifelong advocate, and Founder of the National Hard of Hearing Forum (@n.h.o.h_forum). Her journey with sensorineural hearing loss began at age seven. Today, she wears a hearing aid in her left ear for severe hearing loss and a cochlear implant in her right ear for profound hearing loss—a 2019 decision that transformed her life by opening doors to new sounds and deeper connections.
Through her online platform, Vanessa educates and builds community among those with hearing loss, breaking down barriers and challenging misconceptions. As an active member of the NYC HLAA Chapter and proud mother of two boys, she brings both personal experience and parental perspectives to advocacy work. Her combination of lived experience, community leadership, and digital storytelling makes her a powerful voice for change in the hard of hearing community.
National Hard of Hearing Forum on Social Media:
Instagram: @N.H.O.H_Forum
Facebook: @National Hard of Hearing Forum
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nhohf-5a4269330
Website: http://www.nationalhohforum.org/
BlueSky: @nationalhohforum.bsky.social
Nemiah Hobbs’ journey with hearing loss began at 18 months old, after repeated ear infections led to multiple ear tube surgeries. Nemiah lost significant hearing in her right ear and relied on amplifiers, then hearing aids. Alongside conductive hearing loss came speech delays, stuttering, and mispronunciations, which required an IEP for therapy and extra time on exams. Over time, her hearing was fully restored, but the lessons remained. She learned resilience, the value of strong support systems, and the importance of believing in herself.
Nemiah is pursuing her graduate degree in Speech-Language Pathology, where she is developing her clinical expertise and academic foundation to serve individuals with communication needs at an even greater level. Nemiah shares motivational content and disability awareness posts through her social media platforms, including Instagram and Facebook. Her advocacy extends beyond social media as well—she has shared her story and participated in speaking engagements where she inspires audiences to embrace resilience, break barriers, and pursue their goals with confidence.
Follow Nemiah on Instagram (@projectnemiah)
Connect with Nemiah on Facebook (@ProjectNemiah)