Deaf miss AIDS messages, say activists

RIGHTS activists have called for a programme to address HIV/AIDS among persons with hearing difficulties reports Francis Kagolo, of New Vision (23/09/11)


The activists said the deaf stood a high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS due to lack of knowledge.

The Uganda National Association for the Deaf (UNAD) advocacy coordinator, Joseph Mbulamwana, said of the over 700,000 deaf Ugandans, only about 10% could read and write.

This, he said, had limited their knowledge about the causes of HIV/AIDS, preventive measures and effective ways to live positively.

Mbulamwana said over 90% of the deaf shunned voluntary counselling and testing services due to lack of sign language interpreters at health facilities.

“There is a lot of information but it does not benefit the deaf. Many of them continue to be infected and miserably live with it unaware,” he said.

Mbulamwana added that the situation was getting worse as sections of the public thought the deaf were safe and run to them for unprotected sex.

Mbulamwana made the remarks in an interview with New Vision about this year’s national deaf week which started on Monday.

The celebrations, which are held every third week of September are meant to boost awareness about the problems faced by the deaf.

This year’s celebrations are going on in Ibanda district under the theme: “Are we Planning for the Deaf?”. They end on Friday.

Vision Group, in support of the deaf, offered UNAD free airtime in form of talk shows on Radio West, TV West and Bukedde TV to debate their grievances and advocate for the rights of the deaf. The talkshow on Bukedde TV, code named Akabbinkano was aired on Tuesday at 11:00pm.

The shows were meant to debate the grievances and advocate for rights of the deaf.

“It is hoped that after these shows, the population will be well aware of the problems faced by the deaf in trying to access their rights and that measures will be put in place,” said Doreen Pachuto Vision Group’s legal officer.

Stella Kentutsi, the executive director of the National Forum of People Living with HIV/AIDS, said the deaf had not received the necessary attention.

Mbulamwana said despite the existence of favourable legislation, a number of institutions were reluctant to offer equal treatment to people with hearing impairment.

He cited the sh3b Government grant given annually to districts meant to help persons with disabilities, that in some cases went unutilised.

Scotland’s Largest Deaf Organisation Expands

Two of the oldest organisations working with deaf people in Scotland, Deaf Action and Tayside Deaf Association, were delighted to officially recognise their merger on 16 March writes Andrew Edmundson in the Dundee Messenger (22/08/11).


Between them, the two charities have nearly 300 years of experience in working with deaf 
people and providing services to promote independence.

In September 2010, Deaf Action and Tayside Deaf Association announced their intention to merge; creating the largest deaf organisation in Scotland. On Wednesday 16 March over 140 people, including Councillors, health representatives, organisations and clients gathered at Discovery Point, Dundee to celebrate the launch of Deaf Action in Tayside.

The merger of Deaf Action and Tayside Deaf Association comes at a very important time; this is a difficult period for the third sector, as it is for local governments, companies and individuals themselves. Budgets are being squeezed that will affect the services many people depend on. In this environment Deaf Action and Tayside Deaf Association are delighted to be joining their history, resources and experience together to deliver stronger services for deaf people.

At the launch event, Petra Claydon, a Deaf BSL user and young mum spoke passionately of her feelings of frustration at being unable to communicate throughout her education with hearing colleagues and today with young mums at the school gates. "After discovering the Training Services available from Deaf Action and working with their staff, I am delighted that I am now in a position to deliver Deaf Awareness Training and British Sign Language Training to hearing people. It is courses like this that address the very same communication difficulties I have faced in my life," explained Petra who is now working with Deaf Action in Tayside to provide training courses to others.

Bill Nicol, a member of the Perth lip reading group, stressed what the group meant to him; "The lip reading classes cost very little to sustain but they provide members with much more than the skills of lip reading. People diagnosed with a hearing loss can very quickly become isolated; by attending lip reading classes people get valuable support, advice and companionship, it is important that these services continue and develop."

Liz Scott Gibson, Director of Deaf Action commented "We are overwhelmed by the number of people that came out to support our work. We are looking forward to continuing the great work done here and to developing innovative services to meet the needs of deaf people today". The celebrations came to close with an inspiring performance from Claypotts Primary School Signing Choir.

It is estimated that 1 in 5 people in Scotland are affected by some degree of hearing loss – that approximately 62,000 people in the Tayside region. Deaf Action is the leading provider of services for deaf people in Scotland and has a long history of providing services for and working with Deaf British Sign Language users as well as those who are deafened, deafblind and hard of hearing.

Deaf people march to demand sign language in courts and TV news

Around 150 deaf people marched to the House of Representatives on Monday to push for the passage of two bills mandating the use of sign language in court proceedings and television news programs.

Members of the Philippine Deaf Resource Center (PDRC) arrived at the Batasang Pambansa compound at 4 p.m. and attended plenary sessions after marching from a mall on Commonwealth Avenue to call for the passage of House Bills 4121 and 4631.

A sign language interpreter was flashed on a large screen inside the plenary hall to accommodate the deaf visitors — a first in the lower chamber’s history.

“The 120,000 documented deaf… Filipinos will definitely benefit from such practices, making it possible for them to [comprehend] timely and relevant information," the group said in a letter to House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr.

The group was also able to gather during the past months more than 100,ooo signatures endorsing their call for the enactment of these measures.

HB 4121, authored by Bayan Muna party-list Reps. Teodoro Casiño and Neri Colmenares, requires local networks to use sign language insets in their news programs.

Use of interpreters in court

The PDRC lamented how major Metro Manila news programs do not use subtitles or sign language insets, despite provisions in Republic Act 7277 or the Magna Carta for Disabled Persons.

“Although some regional stations have started utilizing sign language insets with the help of non-government organizations, this practice is unfortunately not carried out by their mother stations," the group said.

HB 4631 meanwhile provides for the use of interpreters in all court proceedings and public hearings.

The group said the measure should be immediately passed to address the “high" incidence of criminal cases involving deaf persons.

Casiño said in a privileged speech that Congress should make sure that the rights of hearing-impaired Filipinos are protected.

“Deaf Filipinos need empowerment and charity… They merely demand equal realization of their rights," he said. — VS/HS, GMA News

Hundreds sign petition to bring back teacher of the deaf

Parents of deaf children in Southampton have collected 1,500 names on a petition calling for the reintroduction of a part-time teacher of the deaf reports the BBC (09/09/11).

Southampton City Council will debate planned cuts to visiting teachers of the deaf on 14 September.

Parents of deaf children, supported by the National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS), will attend the debate.

The council said it welcomed the chance to "advise them of the service we provide and to hear their views".

NDCS said the city currently has the worst level of school back-up for deaf children in England.

Vital service

Jo Campion, of the NDCS, said: "The success of this petition shows that urgent action is needed."

She added: "Deaf children in Southampton face the worst level of specialist support we have seen in this country and it is absolutely vital that the city's council reverse the cut."

Tracey Pettit, whose nine-year-old son William is deaf, said: "We are overwhelmed at the level of support that residents of Southampton have given our petition to save services for deaf children.

"It shows how much everyone cares about the right of deaf children to thrive in school and beyond."

Deaf children and their families in Southampton faced poor support before the council made its latest cut as one post was frozen last year due to budget constraints, the NDCS said.

There are now two part-time specialists in the city, working the equivalent of one full-time post between them to support 165 deaf children.

The charity is currently involved in a campaign across the country to oppose cuts to educational services for deaf children.

Southampton City Council said it had increased resources for deaf children in mainstream education.

Councillor Jeremy Moulton, the city council's cabinet member for Children's Services, said there had been "no cut to service this year and we actually have plans to increase provision in the new school year and every deaf child that is entitled to help will receive it.

"This debate will help show our commitment to the quality of service that the council provides to all children with hearing impairments - which is above and beyond that of many other councils," he added.

Deaf centre loses council funding

The Centre for Deaf People in Bristol is to lose its funding from the city council reports the BBC (08/09/11)

The authority says the centre, which has been based in the city for 125 years, does not provide a good quality service. The city council said it is making £240,000 of cuts to voluntary sector grants.
 
John Maslen, the centre's chief executive, said staff had given the best quality service they could offer. The centre, which offers social activities, employment and training, is now threatened with closure.

Funding is due to end on 1 November. The centre looking into how it can raise money itself.
'Devastating news' Mr Maslen called for a rethink. "It's devastating news," he said. "We have worked tirelessly to make sure that we give the best quality service we can offer. We're all well aware of the savings that have to be made in the country and the local authority and are sympathetic to it. Dialogue has been very sparse with little consultation and we are deeply disappointed and devastated that there hasn't been more full and proper budget saving consultation prior to this announcement."


Alison Comley, strategic director of health and social care at Bristol City Council, said there was a voluntary sector budget of just over £4m which covered about 50 different organisations.
She said last year the council worked with the organisations to discuss how best to make the £240,000 savings. The Centre for Deaf People was not able to provide information on "a number of areas", she said. "We're not planning to cut services to the deaf community," she said. We're not in a position to offer a grant to this organisation but we've got every intention to reprovide the services through a tendering process. It may well be the Centre for Deaf People want to bid for that work."

Exeter Royal Deaf Academy new site agreed

The Royal Academy for Deaf Education is to build a new academy in Devon reports the BBC (07/09/11).

The four-acre site in Ringswell Avenue in the Hill Barton area of Exeter was the former home of St Luke's secondary school.

The academy said its current buildings in Topsham Road, Exeter, were no longer adequate for its 120 students, aged between four and 24.

When the new academy opens it will be able to take 180 students, with residential accommodation for 120.

The academy's chief executive, Jonathan Farnhill, said it had taken two years to agree the new location with Devon County Council.

"It's hugely exciting for everyone - a new beginning and a new opportunity," he said.

'Inspiring place'

Plans for the new building will be drawn up by London architects de Rijke Marsh Morgan - the same firm which prepared plans last year for an academy in the St Leonard's area of the city.

Continue reading the main story

“"This is a much bigger site with a different layout, so we'll be prett

"We still want to build something which is an inspiring place for deaf students, but the different environment may change the way we achieve that."

Funding to pay for the planning application has been secured from Futurebuilders, a government-funded agency which helps charities to develop and expand their services.

A planning application should be submitted early next year and Mr Farnhill said he hoped the new academy would be ready to open in September 2014.

The residential accommodation will be used outside term time for family courses for children who have recently been diagnosed as deaf.

Audiology services for hearing impaired people will also be provided on the new site by Chime social enterprise for NHS Devon.

"For a long time, parents of deaf children have talked of their frustration that the support from health, education and social care is not more joined up," Mr Farnhill said.

"By being co-located, we can work more effectively together, spot gaps in the provision for deaf children quicker and develop new services better."

The current academy in Topsham Road will be sold to help pay for the costs of the new building.

Deaf man stabbed

A deaf man was stabbed by two unidentified persons in Brgy. Handumanan, Bacolod City, at about 12:30 a.m. yesterday reports Visayan Daily Star (06/09/11).

Case investigator Police Officer 2 Kris Kian Cango of Police Station 10 identified the victim as Angelo Viñas, 33, of Brgy. Banago, Bacolod, who was rushed with two stab wounds on his back to the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital.
Investigation showed that Viñas was walking with two companions, whose names were not disclosed, in Purok Narra, Brgy. Handumanan after attending a birthday party, when the suspects blocked their way and, without provocation, stabbed Viñas on the back with what is believed to be an ice pick. The suspects immediately fled bringing with them the ice pick they had used, Cango said.

Deaf war veteran robbed near Canberra

A deaf war veteran has been robbed at knife-point and left stranded in bushland outside Canberra, police say reports News Com AU (06/09/11)

The 66-year-old veteran travelled from rural NSW to the nation's capital with another man "he believed to be his friend" to purchase a vehicle, an ACT Policing spokesman said.

The pair were driving in bushland near Cotter Dam around 11pm (AEST) on Saturday when the friend said they should pull over because he was lost.

"Around this time, a green Holden Commodore, possibly with Queensland registration, stopped close to where the two men had parked," the spokesman said in a statement.

"It was at this stage that the victim was dragged out of the vehicle by his friend who placed a knife against his throat."

The attacker took the veteran's money, mobile phone and wallet before both vehicles were driven away, leaving the veteran in the bush.

The 66-year-old spent the evening on the side of the road alone before making his way to Canberra's city police station on Sunday afternoon to report the robbery.

Police are appealing for anybody who saw a green Commodore in the area to come forward.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/deaf-mute-war-veteran-robbed-near-canberra/story-e6frfkvr-1226129774701#ixzz1X9hnJMlk

Historic deaf centre closes

A SUPPORT group for deaf people in North Kirklees has closed after 120 years reports Dewsbury Reporter.

Dewsbury, Batley and Spenborough Centre for the Deaf has existed since 1891, when the group set up shop in St Hilda’s Church in Batley.

It later moved to Dewsbury, and for the last 40 years the centre has been based in Oxford Road.

However, numbers have fallen in recent years, so that now the group only has around 20 members.

Chairman John Parker said numbers were too low to justify keeping such a large building for the group, so the premises were sold in May.

He said that the dwindling membership was a sign of how far provision for deaf people has come since the centre was founded.

Mr Parker said: “It’s a lot to do with modern technology that didn’t exist 120 years ago.

“When you were profoundly deaf you were really cut off from society, but society has moved on and is more accepting now.

“In a way the centre closing shows that we have moved on.”

The Deaf Centre traditionally provided welfare support to its members, as well as signed church services and parties and games for deaf children.

Deaf people could join in a variety of activities, including the world’s first ever deaf choir, established in 1935.

The choir involved a centre worker pointing at words in time, as they were signed out by another volunteer.

Mr Parker said: “When deaf people came inside, their disability was left at the door.”

Though the centre itself has closed and its premises have been sold, its members still meet on a regular basis.

A service will be held at Dewsbury Minster on Sunday at 2.30pm to celebrate the centre’s history.

Mr Parker said: “We would like to see anyone who has been associated with the centre in its 120 years to come along.”

Southampton's cuts will hit deaf children hard

PARENTS of deaf children in Southampton are campaigning against cuts to services they describe as a ‘lifeline’ reports Bethan Phillips, Southern Daily Echo. 

Charity the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) says the number of specialist teachers of the deaf in the city has been reduced and now stands at one for 165 children – making Southampton’s services ‘the worst in England’.

Among those campaigning for improvement is Angela Hall, 27, and husband Graham, 26, whose eightmonth- old son Riley is profoundly deaf.

They get a weekly visit of one-anda- half hours from a specialist teacher – but this is set to reduce.

Angela, of Kenson Gardens, Sholing, said: “We’ve been told our specialist teacher’s time is going to be reduced, she’s going to say exactly what she’ll be doing when she comes to see us.

“Riley was diagnosed profoundly deaf at three weeks. It was huge shock.

“I can’t tell you how much the support has helped. She teaches us communication techniques, sign language.

That’s Riley’s only way of accessing language at the moment.

“The thought of that being reduced is a huge worry to us. It’s also the thought of this happening to another family.”

Over the last two years the NDCS says the number of specialist teachers of the deaf has been cut by half a full-time post in Southampton. It says there is now the equivalent of only one full time teacher for the city’s 165 deaf children – which is the worst ratio they have come across in the country.

Islington Council is the second worst provider, with one specialist teacher for 95 deaf children while the NDCS recently took legal action to halt cuts by Stoke-on-Trent City Council that would have seen its ratio rise from 50 to 70 deaf children per teacher.

Jo Campion, deputy director of policy and campaigns, said: “Deaf children in Southampton are set to return to school next week with the worst level of support we have seen in the country.

It is absolutely vital that this cut is reversed.”

Southampton City Council has admitted that half a full-time post of a visiting teacher of the deaf was lost in 2009, but claims that this year the provision has increased slightly by a tenth of a full-time position.

Children’s services boss Councillor Jeremy Moultonsaid: “The city council is committed to providing a quality service which meets the needs of children in Southampton.

Despite the difficult financial situation the council faces we have protected this important service.

“We are very interested to have feedback from the National Society for Deaf Children and have received some figures from them which we feel need further analysis. I have written inviting them to come to Southampton and see the service we provide – including the extra support that many councils don’t offer – and hear any views on our service.”

Runaway Deaf children

A new novel by Brian Selznick, Wonderstruck, to be released Sept. 13 is about two 12-year-old runaways, a girl in 1927 and a boy in 1977, who are both deaf reports Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today (01/09/11) 

Their stories intersect at the museum, whose dinosaur skeletons, wildlife dioramas and other natural wonders are "all neatly arranged and organized," Selznick says, "unlike the real world."

At 639 pages — more than 100 pages longer thanHugo— his new novel is one of the biggest (in size and anticipation) kids' books of the fall.

On this day it brings Selznick, 45, back to the museum to talk about his latest novel and Hugo, inspired by the first science-fiction movie. In turn, Selznick's novel inspired Scorsese's first 3-D film.

As in Hugo, Wonderstruck is told in blocks of detailed pencil drawings, most of them wordless, like scenes from a silent movie, that alternate with pages of text. Both novels were painstakingly researched.

Take that iron meteorite, found in Greenland in 1894. Ahnighito (an Inuit name) is the largest meteorite on display in any museum.

"It's the size of a Volkswagen," Selznick says while standing next to it. "It's so heavy that the display stands that support it reach directly to the bedrock beneath the museum."

It's now in the Hall of Meteorites, but Selznick, who likes to "know where everything issupposed to be," knows that in 1927, it was displayed next to the entrance on 77th Street. For the sake of his story, however, he wanted characters to wander about the museum before discovering the meteorite.

"So I moved it," he says with a laugh. "Which was much easier for me to do than the museum."

'Looks beautiful'

He also acknowledges a "debt of gratitude" to one of his favorite children's novels, E.L. Konigsburg's 1968 classic, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, about two kids who run away to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

He has no official role in the movie of Hugo "beyond being a fan." On a visit to the set in London, he was amazed to see "the things that I had made up had become real."

He has seen only "a few moments from the film, but everything I've seen looks beautiful." He felt "a bit like an idiot when I met Asa Butterfield (the young British actor who plays Hugo). I told him, 'Oh, my God, you look just like Hugo. You are Hugo!'"

Scorsese was inspired to make the movie after reading Hugo to his 11-year-old daughter, Francesca.

Screenwriter John Logan says, "Both Marty and I loved the book so much that our challenge was not to let Brian down. We had to boil down the story, to make it more straightforward and simple, but his book and his illustrations became the touchstone in everything we did. Wherever you went on the set, people had copies of the book."

Selznick was inspired by a 1902 movie, A Trip to the Moon, which he saw as a student at the Rhode Island School of Design about 25 years ago.

He had gone to college to become a set designer, but after graduation, he got a job at Eeyore's, a late, lamented children's bookstore in Manhattan, where he painted the window displays and read "all the wonderful children's books I should have read as a kid."

He ended up illustrating a series of biographies for kids, then happened to read a book that mentioned that A Trip to the Moon's French filmmaker, George Melies, collected automata — mechanical toys.

Melies donated them to a museum, where they were neglected and thrown away. Selznick imagined a boy named Hugo finding one and trying to fix it. Melies, who fell on hard times and worked as a toy seller, became a character in Selznick's novel and is played by Kingsley in the movie.

He set Hugo in 1932, when sound was still a novelty in films. They "used bursts of sound, which inspired me to a do a book with bursts of pictures."

Wonderstruck has even more complicated inspirations.

In its barest outline, the story alternates between two deaf kids who run away to New York: Rose in 1927 and Ben in 1977. Both are in search of families.

Rose's story is told almost entirely with illustrations. Ben's is told with words and drawings.

Its inspiration began in 1992, when a friend who worked at the American Museum of Natural History treated Selznick to a behind-the-scenes tour of its workshops.

Two decades later, while working on Hugo, he watched a public TV documentary,Through Deaf Eyes, about the history of Deaf culture. (He notes that deaf, with a lowercase d, refers to the condition of being deaf, while Deaf, with a capital D, refers to the culture.)

Selznick was fascinated to learn how sound, introduced to movies in 1927, affected deaf viewers: "Movies, for the first time, excluded the deaf. I had never thought about that," but he decided his main characters would be deaf.

"In the documentary, a teacher talks about Deafness as 'a visual culture,' and about how the deaf are a 'people of the eye,'" Selznick says. "Sign language is a language you watch, which became a key to how Wonderstruck would be illustrated."

Selznick, who splits his time between Brooklyn and San Diego, where his boyfriend, David Serlin, teaches at the University of California-San Diego, found other help. Two of Serlin's colleagues, Carol Padden and Tom Humphries, a husband-and-wife team who are deaf, are leading scholars of Deaf culture. They helped Selznick "better understand how Ben and Rose would interact with the world."

And Serlin had written a book, Replaceable You: Engineering the Bodyin Postwar America (2004), about a program that offered free reconstructive surgery in the USA to victims of the Hiroshima bombing.

Serlin's book, in turn, inspired a puppet show by Selznick's friend Dan Hurlin, Hiroshima Maidens, that weaves together two stories: the women disfigured in the bombing, told by puppets, and the story of an American boy, told by a Japanese storyteller.

Selznick says: "One story was told with words, and one was told with puppets, until they came together at the end in a beautiful way.

That's how I wanted to structure Wonderstruck, so at the end, readers would not remember what parts they had read and what parts they had seen. It would become a single continuous narrative in the reader's mind."

No e-book is planned

He says that after Hugo, which was awarded the Caldecott Medal in 2007 as the best illustrated children's book, "I wanted to do something similar, but different. I didn't want to just repeat myself."

He has succeeded, says Lisa Von Drasek, librarian at the Bank Street College of Education School in New York: "The title says it all. I was wonderstruck, and kids will be, too. The intertextual connections were like clues on a scavenger hunt."

Selznick says there has been some movie interest in Wonderstruck but no deal yet.

He's adamant that it won't be released as an e-book: "I want it to exist as an object. The turning of physical pages is important to me. I want to feel the weight of a book. The paper in your hands is an intrinsic part of understanding the story."

As for his next book, he knows the setting, plot and characters, which he won't reveal, but not yet "how or why it's going to be illustrated. That still needs to reveal itself. The illustrations need to exist for a reason. They need to be justified within the story." Or, at least, within a Brian Selznick story.