European Union of the Deaf
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Volume 9
Number 10
June 2006 Special Issue - EUD 2006 workshop report

Workshop facilitators

Mr. Yannis Yallouros (EUD board member – NAD Greece)

Mr. Asger Bergmann (DDL – NAD Denmark)

Dr. Adam Kosa (SINOSZ President - NAD Hungary)

Ms. Berglind Stefansdottir (EUD board member – NAD Iceland)

Ms. Helga Stevens (EUD President)

EUD hosted a Leadership workshop on 11 th May 2006 in Vienna, Austria. The purpose of this workshop was to promote exchange of experience and ideas on leadership strategies and possible activities to be undertaken by EUD member associations. Five facilitators each made a short presentation (15-20 minutes). This was followed by questions from and discussions with workshop participants.

PUBLIC RELATIONS – raising the profile of Deaf people by Yannis YALLOUROS

Hellenic Federation of the Deaf (HFD) recently secured a budget for Sign Language interpretation. This was a step towards the recognition of Greek Sign Language as the first language used by the Deaf community in Greece. Yannis YALLOUROS presented the different steps that were taken in securing this budget, the factors that contributed to the success of this initiative, the obstacles that HFD encountered, how they overcame these, tips for other EUD members wishing to embark on the same initiative, with the benefit of experience what would HFD do differently if they were to embark on the same thing again.

Yannis distinguished three big steps in order to achieve the funding of interpreting services: drafting a plan, identifying needs and implementation .

• Drafting a plan : Yannis stressed Deaf people need professional interpreters in order to participate at meetings, as well as for contacts with legal departments and governments. Voluntary interpreters, like family members from Deaf people, often do the best they can but cannot be considered to be professional interpreters. Exposing society to Sign Language in very important. Yannis stressed the necessity of teaching hearing people. Greece has a strong oral tradition but since Greek Sign Language was partly recognized by the Greek Law in 1988, the sensitisation of society in general has begun to occur slowly. Yannis added that in big cities interpreters can be booked relatively easily in comparison to those in rural settings. In December 2005, the Greek Parliament officially established an interpreters service, which is being funded for by the Greek Government. This is a great step forward with regard to accessibility for the Deaf community.

• Identifying needs : Yannis stressed that having no Sign Language Interpreter available meant that Deaf people do not have communication, nor accessibility, which means that they are excluded from society. Society in general is often misinformed about the Deaf community; hearing people tend to think that Deaf people are only able to pursue vocational training. Therefore they don’t expect to see Deaf people studying at universities. Neither do they consider them to be of equal status. In 2000, Greek Sign Language was granted an official status in education and very recently also the news on television started to be interpreted.

• Implementation : Yannis informed that there were also practical issues to resolve when it comes to interpreting services. Interpreters need to have a permit, there has to be funding available to pay them and they have to obey a code of ethics - for example to be discrete about their interpreters’ jobs.

Conclusion : A large scale mobilisation of Deaf people in July 2005 has proved to be a good incentive for the Greek Government to take action. The Greek Government has declared a provision of 200.000€ budget for Sign Language Interpretation in 2006. The Interpreters’ service is in the hands of the HFD. The Greek Government pays for the running of two offices. Unfortunately the state budget has to be renegotiated each year and this lack of work stability causes interpreters to drop out.

ACCESSING THE MEDIA – Information is power by Asger BERGMANN

Danish Deaf Association (DDL) recently achieved a great coup for the Deaf community in Denmark. Since the end of March 2006, there exists a digital Sign Language channel. This is the result of tireless lobbying by DDL to ensure access by Deaf people to the news as it is broadcast to the population at large. Asger BERGMANN, the President of DDL explained the steps that DDL took to achieving this.

DDL has lobbied intensively for an on screen interpreter for over 20 years. Unfortunately discussions with the TV directors always come to standstill since there was an internal discussion between Deaf and hard of hearing, respectively between Sign Language on television and subtitling and/or cued speech. The administration agreement between television and government urged for conditions with regard to Sign Language and subtitling, but these conditions were never really enforced. Television companies did not want Sign Language on the television screen. Their recommendation was to wait for digital television.

DDL on the other hand, wanted to have a gradual increase of subtitling (e.g. BBC) and more deaf access. One achievement of DDL was to secure the broadcasting of news for the Deaf. From Monday to Friday a 10 minute summary of the news is broadcast in Sign Language. Despite this, DDL kept on asking for more on the grounds that Deaf people have the right to access the same information that hearing people have. Therefore a summary of the news was not detailed enough.

With the birth of Digital TV it became possible to have more Sign Language on screen and the choice to be made between Sign Language or subtitling became irrelevant. Asger explained that Denmark started broadcasting digital television with four channels – the sign language channel is one of them. More channels will arise in the years to come. By 2009, all television viewers will have to buy either digital television or a decoder.

DDL is very happy with the recent changes, but Asger stressed that everything has happened at very short notice. DDL suddenly had to come up with a pool of 6 interpreters who were able to work for television. Deaf people had to buy a digital decoder in order to be able to view the news translated into Sign Language on Denmark’s leading TV channels.

Asger admitted that digital TV is a huge step forward for Deaf people. He however regretted that due to the digital decoder, hearing people are no longer exposed to Sign Language, which is a step backwards. DDL also fears that the 10 minute Deaf summary in future may be abolished since now there is fully signed news.

In Summer 2006, the Danish TV will also provide full subtitling. At this moment direct interventions are not subtitled yet, but with speech technology this will become possible in the very near future. DDL will continue lobbying for Sign Language interpretation and subtitling at special events such as breaking news and election programmes and political debates.

Asger stressed that, when doing lobbywork, real life contact between Deaf people and politicians is of the utmost importance. When Deaf people go to and defend their interest at politicians, they inform them and sensitise them at the same time. Personal contacts make awareness grow.

Germany asked some questions with regard to the quality of the interpreters and wanted to know whether DDL had considered hiring Deaf interpreters for the interpretation of the news?

Asger said that all interpreters in the pool were very fluent signers (some of them native speakers such as Children of Deaf Adults (CODAs). DDL had already experimented with Deaf interpreters but for news programmes the speed was too fast. He considered however that in the future DDL’s position on this subject could change.

Yannis asked whether there were other programmes being signed, apart from the news? Asger answered that there was also a one hour transmission on Saturday’s about different themes which was made by Deaf people and sponsored by the Government. He clarified that it was very important to keep this kind of programmes on mainstream tv since not all Danish Deaf people currently are in the possession of digital TV.

Norway stated that digital TV already existed for 5 years in Norway and that different kinds of programmes were transmitted (for children, sport, news etc), however there was some protest from the Deaf community since they had to pay for the digital TV themselves.

ANTI-DISCRIMINATION – The legal climate for Deaf in EU by Adam KOSA

Adam KOSA, President of the Hungarian National Association of the Deaf (SINOSZ) and Deaf lawyer, represented EUD at the European Commission’s Annual Conference. The theme was anti-discrimination and diversity training. Adam talked about the training issues relevant to lawyers and NGOs, as well as advocacy and strategic litigation activities. All these tools are necessary in the fight against discrimination.

Adam explained the conference had 4 major sessions: (1) training lawyers and NGOs, (2) presentations from employers (both public and private sector), (3) other key groups (including young people, trade unions and the media) and (4) looking towards the future.

Adam said he had learned a lot from the presentation from Dieter SCHINDLAUER (Austrian Litigation Association) who is responsible for training legal practioners and NGOs. These training courses aim to raise awareness and clarify definitions and key concepts. Emphasis lies on case law. Mr SCHINDLAUER considered lawyers and NGOs to be at the very heart of the principle of anti-discrimination. Anti-discrimination is a dynamic process, which demands using creativity.

Other interesting presentations included Geert FREYHOFF from Inclusion Europe which has set up a plan for training in advocacy. Inclusion Europe sees 4 important topics in this advocacy: (1) awareness (training and scenarios for test cases), (2) notification (test cases report form), (3) evaluation (national legal experts) and (4) action (advice on non-discrimination, lobbying to the government and bringing cases to national courts).

Adam stated diversity can be compared with an iceberg; you can distinguish between its visible and invisible parts. Visible differences include age, culture and gender – invisible differences are among others: language, background, nationality, sexual orientation, politics, etc. Disability and deafness often are partly visible as well as partly invisible. Deafness for example is an invisible disability apart from the communication aspect.

Adam ended his presentation by making some recommendations to EUD. He proposed organising an extended training course of 2 or 3 days, which should not only be open to deaf activists, but also to lawyers, NGOs, and members of civil services etc. He stressed this training should focus both on national and international level. He also referred to the new EU programme entitled Progress which will bring together existing funding programmes in anti-discrimination, gender equality, social exclusion, employment and working conditions. This programme will have a budget of over 630€ million.

BEYOND FRONTIERS – regional alliances by Berglind STEFANSDOTTIR

Betty STEFANSDOTTIR familiarized participants with the Nordic Council of the Deaf (DNR), which was founded in 1907. Currently the council has 6 members: Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and the Faroe islands. Since 1950 the DNR has developed a more continuous cooperation.

Betty explained the DNR aims to have sign language officially recognized as the first language of deaf people and to exchange information about the development and changes regarding deaf people and their situation in the member countries. To this end the NDR arranges seminars in order to exchange experiences in various fields, e.g. sign language, education and social problems. The DNR also undertakes various actions regarding mutual concern. Betty considered the information flow between the member states to be of vital importance. She referred to recent successes such as the Digital Channel which was set up in Denmark and the making the 112 national emergency number accessible to deaf people in Iceland.

The member states of the DNR also want to help deaf people in the third world. To this extent, they run various projects in Africa and South America. The goal is to establish and support National Associations of the Deaf (NAD).

Betty also gave some insight on the organizational structure of the DNR. DNR members meet twice a year in a meeting where each country has two representatives (director and president of the NAD) and the DNR is supported by a secretariat which stays in office for 4 years. Apart from these meetings there are also camps organised for children and youngsters, as well as camps for pensioners.

Betty said the DNR is a very democratic structure; the organization program is discussed among the members and has a diversity of agenda points (CI problems, country reports, co-operation, financial matters etc.). Hot topics currently being discussed are: technology and the pace of change, Cochlear Implants, Human Rights in relation to non-discrimination and deaf schools. The DNR is financially supported by the Scandinavian Handicap Forum (NSH) which pays for the flight tickets of participants. The country which is hosting the meeting pays for hotel, food and other transportation.

The Nordic Council will celebrate its 100 th anniversary in 2007 and for that occasion a history book will be published in 2007. DNR is also developing a website, which will be accessible via www.deaf.is/dnr soon.

Betty ended her presentation by inviting all workshop participants to the Nordic Deaf Culture Festival, which will take place from 10-16 July 2006 in Iceland. More information available on www.deaf.is/2006.

DEAF LEADERS – engaging with the political system by Helga STEVENS

Helga STEVENS was elected to the Flemish Parliament in June 2004. Helga explained the steps that she went through to bring about her candidacy.

Helga began working for EUD in 1996, which was about the same time that she became involved in a political working group related to people with disabilities. She appeared on election lists in 1999 and 2003 but unfortunately wasn’t elected on either occasion. In 2004, her political party formed an alliance with another political party and this time she was successful. Helga was elected as Member of Parliament into the Flemish Parliament (northern part of Belgium).

She stressed that in politics networking is a keyword; you have to be active and make contacts yourself and cannot wait for other people to come to you. A problem for Deaf people is that communication doesn’t always goes smoothly. For example, at a reception or a dinner event, a hearing people can monitor different conversations and can hear what is being said and if this is something that interests them participate in the conversation themselves. For Deaf people however, this is not applicable. Also you cannot expect interpreters to be available 24 hours a day.

Helga said she always attended meetings with her two interpreters. For some people this is somehow something to be afraid of. On the other hand, interpreting is teamwork between her and the interpreters. This requires a lot of trust between them as a team, especially for something as crucial as voicing over. Helga explained that she signs in parliament and that her interpreters voice over for her.

Being active in politics means working on both local and national levels. It means attending lots of meetings and receptions and also means making contacts and exchanging business cards.

Helga informed the audience that she received lots of support from her party. She also has a parliamentary assistant, who can make her phone calls.

Helga stressed that from her point of view, it is very important to keep a link with the grassroots Deaf community and with other disability groups.

Thomas WORSECK from Germany asked Helga how it felt to ‘survive’ as a deaf person in the hearing world of politics. He also wanted to know how the voicing over by interpreters went, since in Germany this is problematic.

Helga replied that she grew up in a hearing family. Real life is a hearing world but it is important to establish your identity as a Deaf person and to come in contact with Deaf people for leisure activities, to stay balanced within both worlds. She said that in 2004 she made a big step, stepping aside as EUD Director and ‘returning’ to the hearing world. With regard to interpretation, she stressed once again that trust is of the utmost importance. The voicing over cannot be controlled 100% but she explained that she has the right to correct reports of meetings in case of interpreters’ errors.

Helga added that she felt that, since its recent recognition, Flemish Sign Language (VGT) had gained more respect among her colleagues. She said she was happy that barriers seem to be coming down.