Signs look good for the town’s deaf youngsters

A CLUB for Oldham’s young deaf people is going from strength to strength two years after its formation reports Marina Berry (03/08/11)

 

HELPING HAND: Anjum Raza (left) with 

members and volunteers of the Oldham 

Deaf Diverse Community group.

The people behind it are now urging more to join. Anjum Raza, known as Raz, and his wife, Bharti, who is profoundly deaf, were long-term regulars at Oldham Deaf Club, a social club in Park Road.

“It’s great for a talk and a drink,” said Raz, “but we thought it would be good if there was a second club for young people who wanted to do the kind of activities which take place in youth clubs.”

Raz (36) and Bharti (38) drafted in a friend, Waheed Chohan (29), and together they set about forming Oldham Deaf Diverse Community.

It meets fortnightly on Saturdays behind the Lyceum, Union Street, Oldham, and is a storming success.

Raz explained: “We wanted to form a social club for young deaf people and their families so they could interact in positive activities both socially and educationally.

“People came just to see what we were offering, and never stopped coming.

“Young deaf people in Oldham don’t have a lot to do, and we wanted to have a club where they could come and do whatever they like.

“Being deaf doesn’t stop people doing anything they want to, and we want people to come along and try us out to see if they like us.”

Raz added: “We do so many things it’s hard to list them all.

“We go on trips, give people the opportunity to try new experiences both in and out of Oldham, and we run workshops on everything from developing job skills to crafts.

“We are now planning our first three-day residential outing in October,”

The organisation, finalists in the Chronicle’s Pride in Oldham awards in 2009, is run purely by volunteers who give up their time to make sure it works.

They also work to raise deaf awareness, and run a “sign circle,” where people can learn basic sign language, visit schools and youth clubs to teach sign language, and give tips to anyone on how to communicate with a deaf person.

Raz said: “There are on average at least 50 people join us every fortnight, and 80 per cent of those are deaf.

“Others who come include siblings, parents, and people who work in schools and colleges and want to learn more about communicating with deaf people.”

Keen to get the message out that there is somewhere for deaf people to go to have fun, Raz added: “It’s a fantastic club, just come and try us.”

For information contact Raz on 0797 3236171 or pop in to the club on Saturday, August 27 (4-8pm).

Deaf charity to take legal action against council cuts

The BBC reports on the NDCS fight to protect services (18/08/11)

 

The authority has halved the number of specialist 

teachers, the National Deaf Children's Society said

A deaf children's charity has said it is taking legal action against Stoke-on-Trent City Council for "reckless" cuts to support services.

The National Deaf Children's Society said the authority has halved the number of specialist teachers.
It claimed if further cuts went ahead three specialists would be left to cover more than 200 children.
The council said it would be inappropriate to comment on impending legal action.
The legal action calls on Stoke-on-Trent City Council to reverse its decision to cut educational support for deaf children.
Four of eight posts for specialist teachers of the deaf in the city have been cut over the past two years.
Another teaching post will be removed in September due to restructuring.
The charity said the council was in breach of the law on at least two fronts - by failing to properly assess the impact the cuts would have on deaf children and by bringing in changes that risk putting deaf children at a greater disadvantage.
'Utterly reckless' Suzanne Pitchford, mum of seven-year-old Sam, who is deaf, said: "The council is just not listening, so this is the only way forward now.
"Sam isn't getting any support at school at all because of the cuts. They are not taking the needs of deaf children to heart and by taking away this support they are jeopardising our children's futures."
The charity's deputy director of campaigns, Jo Campion, said: "The council has been utterly reckless in its decision to cut support that deaf children in Stoke-on-Trent need to achieve at school.
"They have rushed these cuts through with no regard for the impact on the future of these deaf children and have left parents to rely on rumour to find out what exactly has been going on."
Teachers of the deaf provide support and advice for parents, help deaf children learn communication and language skills before they go to school and work with children and their classroom teachers throughout their education.

Run, Deaf Boy, Run! at Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Steve Bennett reviewed Run, Deaf Boy, Run! on 15/08/11
Running a marathon is not the most immediately promising of subjects for a stand-up show. All those training hours spent pounding the streets alone is hardly conducive to the funnies, and blisters, dehydration and aching muscles are not exactly high on the list of comedy illnesses. So it’s testament to Steve Day’s warmth and good humour that Run Deaf Boy Run is such a hugely entertaining, cheerfully uplifting treat of a show. Day is profoundly deaf, not that that’s a huge obstacle to running, sweaty hearing aids aside. More of a problem was that he was an out-of-shape 47-year-old who lived on late-night Ginsters and was a total stranger to exercise. He only decided to do the race because of a misplace macho over-reaction to his doctor telling him to do a bit of mild exertion now and again. But gradually he built up the distances, from a breathless few hundred metres until he was nearly race-ready… and that’s when he injured himself. It’s almost as if he realised any good story is going to need a second-act setback. The running, though, is only part of the story. Day also confesses to human weaknesses both universal – getting into inexorable situations because of procrastination and fear of embarrassment – and unique to him – cheating at a sign language exam. Some of these emerge naturally from the narrative, but even those not directly related to the marathon are woven in seamlessly. Day’s superb at letting the story unfold, with no fuss, just engaging likeability, occasionally flashing a price turn of phrase, such as his description of an overnight National Express coach trip to get to the marathon in time. ‘What a nice man,’ one punter was heard saying on leaving the show, and that’s perfectly true. The show probably doesn’t bear much more analysis than that, but it is nonetheless a thoroughly absorbing, feelgood hour.
Run, Deaf Boy, Run! is at Edinburgh Fringe Festival 17 - 28/08/11 13:10 - 14:10 Stand 2 16 North St Andrew Street Edinburgh EH2 1HJ UK

The lawyers trying to give deaf people a hearing

Ten million people have a hearing problem but legal aid cuts will make woeful provision of legal services worse, finds Neil Rose (Guardian 11/08/11).

The legal system is not geared to handle the need of deaf people. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi
You don't have to look very far to find stories about deaf people who have been let down by lawyers and the legal system. There's Funmi, a deaf Nigerian who has lived in the UK since 1987 but whose solicitor did not make her citizenship application correctly; David, a self-employed man whose solicitor did not fight his corner over benefits he was entitled to for being wholly reliant on his hearing mother to communicate with clients; and John, whose union solicitor did a bad job of his disability discrimination case against a well-known financial institution. All of these people eventually turned to RAD Legal Services, part of the Royal Association for Deaf People and the country's only dedicated legal resource for the deaf. Why are there not more, especially because – with nearly 10 million people suffering some sort of hearing problem – it is potentially a huge market to serve? Its head, solicitor Rob Wilks, is not certain. "It could be because deafness is a 'hidden' disability," he says. There are small signs of this changing. Blackburn law firm Joseph Frasier will next week launch a campaign to provide legal services for deaf people under the headline: "Representing your right to be heard." Claiming to be the first private law firm dedicated to deaf and hard of hearing people, founder Saimina Virmani says it is the culmination of 18 months of preparation; the campaign was inspired by deaf staff working in the building where the firm is situated (which belongs to the East Lancashire Deaf Society) and by her experience of acting for a deaf client. She has also come across "terrible" stories of solicitors denying deaf people access to interpreters and simply not understanding the different ways they need to communicate with deaf people, such as in the way they write letters. The firm's fee-earners, none of whom are deaf, are being taught British Sign Language (BSL) and it is adapting its communication channels. "The last few months have been a journey for us and we have loved learning about deaf culture," Virmani says. "The deaf community is very tightly knit and although we see people who are deaf as being on the outside of our world, the tables have now completely turned and we are on the outside. As legal professionals we are trained to use the power of our advocacy and voice but in working with deaf/hard of hearing clients, this has essentially been taken away from us." The legal system, it appears, is simply not geared to the needs of deaf people – Rob Wilks says deaf people who use BSL as a first language often have poor literacy levels (the average reading age for deaf school leavers is 8-9 years). "This means that they cannot understand information leaflets and correspondence, or access telephone helplines using a textphone," he says. A report in 2009 by the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that the advice system of CABs, law societies, union sources and private firms of solicitors "are often still inaccessible to profoundly deaf customers" though the Disability Discrimination Act has been on the statute books since 1995. Now the Equality Act 2010, it requires service providers to make adjustments to ensure that a disabled person can use a service as close as it is reasonably possible to the standard usually offered to non-disabled people. This is not happening across the legal system, both in most law firms and in the courts. Part of the problem, Wilks says, is the "chronic shortage" of interpreters, but it is just plain neglect as well. One of Virmani's projects has been to build a network of law firms (now numbering nearly 50) around the country that have committed to become deaf-aware and will be able to help deaf people in their area if face-to-face help is required. The association began an advice service in 2000, transforming into RAD Legal Services in July 2007, when Wilks, who has been deaf since birth, qualified as a solicitor and the £500,000 Big Lottery Fund deaf minority advice project commenced. Over the past four years, RAD has handled nearly 1,500 cases, with employment, welfare benefits, discrimination and housing the most in-demand areas of law. It has a contract (until March 2012) from the Equality and Human Rights Commission to provide discrimination advice to deaf and hard of hearing people throughout England, Wales and Scotland. Plans for the first deaf law centre are also well underway. And there is further hope that the legal needs of deaf people will be understood. The legal services consumer panel has confirmed that the first of a series of studies into how specific groups of consumers (particularly disadvantaged ones) experience legal services will be in partnership with Action on Hearing Loss (formerly RNID). Emma Harrison, a member of the panel and head of public engagement at Action on Hearing Loss, says the study has come out of work the charity has been doing to improve access to the courts and hopes to highlight the pockets of best practice that exist in the legal profession. But the prospect of the legal aid cuts could worsen the situation for the deaf community, Wilks says. Aside from simply not being able to afford legal advice, law firms or other legal advice providers that have legal aid franchises will no longer be able to rely on legal aid to claim the costs of interpreters as a disbursement. "This means the number of providers willing to provide legal advice to deaf people is likely to decline." Given the low base from which this is starting, it is a woeful prospect.

Deaf man complains nudists would not provide interpreter

A deaf man has accused a nudist park in upstate New York of violating federal law by refusing to provide him with a sign-language interpreter at an annual festival reports Daniel Wiessner, Tue Aug 9, 2011, HUDSON, New York (Reuters).

Tom Willard, 53, of Rochester, filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department claiming Empire Haven Nudist Park violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by refusing his requests for an interpreter.
"I am fed up with being turned away every time I try to do something, by idiots who somehow feel the ADA does not apply to them," Willard wrote in the complaint.
The ADA law requires businesses and nonprofit groups to provide auxiliary aids and services, including interpreters, at no additional cost to users. First-time violations can lead to fines of up to $55,000.
Willard told Reuters that in 2009 he approached a board member of the Naturist Society, which organized the festival, who told him he could hire his own interpreter. But he said the board member denied his request that he and the interpreter attend the event for free.
The six-day event costs $45 overall, plus an additional $17 for each day a person attends.
Willard filed his federal complaint on July 19.
On August 2, the festival's opening day, the Naturist Society offered to get an interpreter but said it would need three days notice to do so, Willard said.
Willard said he wanted to raise awareness of groups that ignore the ADA. He said he was also filing a complaint against a local comedy club that refused to provide an interpreter.
"I hate that I have to go through these experiences and subject myself to ridicule and derision, but the alternative is to stay home and never try to do anything in the world," Willard said.
Michael Schwartz, director of Syracuse University College of Law's disability rights clinic, said businesses often ignore their responsibilities under the ADA because it can be cheaper not to comply.
"Because of the cost (of interpreters), many places choose to say 'no,'" he said. "They are making a calculated choice that they'll get away with it."
A spokeswoman for Empire Haven, which is in the Finger Lakes region of New York state, was not available for comment, and Morley Schloss, the Naturist Society board member contacted by Willard, did not respond to several requests for comment.