Legal Seat – Helsinki, Finland

An International Non-Governmental Organisation in official liaison with ECOSOC, UNESCO,
ILO, WHO and the Council of Europe, established in Rome in 1951

PO Box 65, FIN-00401 Helsinki, FINLAND
FAX: +358 9 5803 572
www.wfdeaf.org

The World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), its Members and the 2,100 participants from 125 countries at the XVI World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf in Durban, South Africa, 18-24 July 2011.
Recalling the statement by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Opening Ceremony of the World Congress, “participation is a key human rights principle. However, without adequate access to sign language interpretation, bilingual education and recognition of sign language, there are important barriers” to the full enjoyment by deaf people of their human rights,

Reaffirming the importance of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Optional Protocol thereto, specifically:
Article 3: Respect for difference and acceptance of deaf persons as part of human diversity and humanity,
Article 9: Enabling persons with disabilities to participate fully in all aspects of life including access to information and communications including provision of professional sign language interpreters,
Article 21: Recognising and promoting the use of sign languages,
Article 24: Ensuring that the education of deaf children is delivered in the most appropriate languages for the individual and in environment which maximises academic and social development and employing teachers who are qualified in sign language,
Article 25: Ensuring deaf persons have the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health without discrimination,
Article 30: Recognising the right of deaf persons to take part on an equal basis with others in cultural life including the recognition and support of sign languages and deaf culture,
Recalling also that deaf women and girls are often subject to multiple discrimination and emphasizing the need to incorporate a gender perspective in all efforts to promote the full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms by persons with disabilities,

1. Reaffirms the need to promote quality deaf education and calls upon governments to take active measures:
2. Reaffirms the need to promote quality deaf education and calls upon governments to take active measures:
   1. To protect the right of deaf people to be educated in sign language;
   2. To emphasize the need for research-based best practise models in deaf education;
   3. To ensure appropriate support in inclusive settings, including professional sign language interpreters;
   4. To employ in the schools teachers who are qualified and fluent in sign language including deaf teachers, to promote the cultural and linguistic identity of the deaf;
3. Urges the promotion of sign language and deaf studies
   1. To encourage and promote the recognition of sign language as a fundamental human right for all deaf people including infants and children;
   2. To promote research into sign languages and deaf cultures;
   3. to promote the many unique positive contributions of deaf people that can be offered as benefits to the wider society;
4. Emphasizes the need for constant attention to the needs of deaf communities in developing countries, particularly in Africa, and urges members and governments:
   1. To empower deaf associations in developing countries with particular attention to the strengthening of organisational capacity;
   2. To emphasize the active role of deaf associations in capacity-building and leadership programmes for developing countries;
   3. To work and cooperate with the Secretariat of the African Decade of Persons with Disabilities (SADPD) in order to ensure the participation and inclusion of deaf people in disability programming processes in Africa.
5. Reaffirms that deaf people have full equality and enjoyment of their human rights
   1. To ensure that a positive image of deaf people as a natural part of human diversity be promoted worldwide;
   2. To develop information and training for national deaf associations on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to ensure that deaf women and girls are empowered in all areas of their lives;
   3. To train deaf communities around the world in their rights under the CRPD;
   4. To ensure that governments adopt the CRPD and its Optional Protocol to enable deaf people to enforce their rights under the CRPD;
   5. To ensure that information on sign language development for children with cochlear implants be provided to parents, and that WFD create a position paper on cochlear implants;
   6. To promote early identification and family-centred early intervention including sign language and exposure to deaf culture to ensure optimal access to social and academic success;
   7. To promote research in conjunction with WFD into improving access to health care for deaf people around the world;
6. Calls on deaf lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons to actively promote their right to freedom of association and to protection as any other person and to include deaf LGBT in WFD programmes of empowerment, capacity-building and self-pride;
7. Urges the strengthening of the field of sign language interpreting through professional interpreter training programmes and interpreter mentors, and to promote research on the effect of professional sign language interpreters in inclusive education and the consequences on the quality of life of deaf students;
8. Strongly urges the promotion and development of access to mental health services for deaf children, youth, adults and the elderly, and to initiate and encourage research into mental health models for deaf populations;
9. Affirms the importance of the recognition of children of deaf adults (CODAs) as multilingual persons with a significant contribution to their families, their schools and local communities, and to promote national CODA organisations;
10. Encourages the promotion of sign language and deaf culture training to parents of deaf children;
11. Urges the availability of appropriate services to deaf senior citizens;
12. Encourages full use of the latest technological advances to enhance access and communication for all deaf people;
13. Reaffirms the importance of appropriate services for deafblind people to ensure their full participation in society;
14. Strongly encourages its members to form strong ties with their national deaf youth movement and to support youth activities in their respective countries.

Gracias VRS received this letter below from concerned parties in Chile and support these efforts. Here is the letter we received and we encourage anyone interested in helping to support their cause.

Good afternoon dear colleagues.

Sign language interpreter

(more…)

The deaf and hard-of-hearing Internet users now have a way to watch free videos on YouTube. Google announced earlier this year that it has added automatic caption capability to videos on YouTube.

The change has been lauded by advocates for the hearing impaired, such as the Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Milwaukee. The center called it “great news for deaf and hard-of-hearing Internet users” in a press release.

Machine-generated captions on videos from 13 YouTube “partner channels” will initially be available only in English, with plans to expand the feature to include more languages in the future. YouTube users have had a manual version of the service since last year, but it has not been broadly used and does not include most of the site’s content.

The caption project was led by Ken Harrenstein, a deaf Google software engineer.

“In some ways this reminds me of when closed-captioning (CC) was first introduced,” said Mr. Harrenstein in a Google news release. “Before that, little on TV made sense, and the only movies worth paying for were foreign films, because those were the only ones with subtitles! I now have the same sense of hope that I did then.”

Full Article at Epoch Times

By MIGUEL HELFT
Published: November 19, 2009

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — In the first major step toward making millions of videos on YouTube accessible to deaf and hearing-impaired people, Google unveiled new technologies on Thursday that will automatically bring text captions to many videos on the site.

The technology will also open YouTube videos to a wider foreign market and make them more searchable, which will make it easier for Google to profit from them.

While the technology can insert captions only on English-language speech, Google is giving users the choice of using its automatic translation system to read the captions in 51 languages. That could broaden the appeal of YouTube videos to millions of other people who do not speak English but could use the captioning technology to read subtitles in their native language.

The speech recognition technology that Google uses to turn speech into text is not new; Google currently uses it to transcribe voice mail messages for users of its Google Voice service. But Ken Harrenstien, a deaf engineer who helped develop the automatic captioning system, said the technology had never been applied on such a large scale.

“This is something that I have dreamt of for many years,” Mr. Harrenstien said, speaking through an interpreter. “To see it happen is amazing.”

Full Article here

The Annual Deaf March will take place Saturday September 26, 2009 at 10:00 a.m.. The March will depart from the Hiram Bithorn Parking Lot towards Roosevelt Ave and from there to Colegio San Gabriel In Puerto Nuevo. There we would do the Protocolary act to proclaim the week starting September 27 to October 3rd as the Puerto Rico “Deaf Week”. After the protocolary act, then thee Deaf community will be able to participate in a health fair where Medical Students and the lab technicians association of Puerto Rico will provide a health fair together with the Pediatric Dentist Association. We will also have food and drinks plus booths providing information related to services specifically tailored to the Deaf. This event is co-sponsored by the municipality of San Juan and various commercial brands.

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This is also the location and dates for the 6th Conference of the Deaf of Latin America

Bogota, Colombia

7-10 July 2009

www.aniscol.org
www.fenascol.org.co