Annual Negotiations with FAD
14-16 July, 2003
| Monday, July 14 was the day reserved by the delegation from the Finnish Association of the Deaf for meeting with the Deaf Development Program, their program in Cambodia. We did meet that day but did not finish all on our agenda, so we met again on July 16. That was possible because the deaf group from Albania were not able to get visas to Canada in time to make their meeting with FAD which had been scheduled for that day. |
 The Cambodian delegation arrived a day and a half early for the negotiations in order to give them time to recover from jetlag, a first-time experience for them. Then it was down to work. Here Vuth (left) discusses a slideshow presentation on the computer with Colin Allen, a DDP advisor, in the lobby of the Montreal hotel where the meetings were held. |
 A traditional part of such meetings is an exchange of gifts from our respective countries. Here Markku Jokinen, the president of the Finnish Association of the Deaf, receives a carved wooden apsara statue from Vuth, the assistant manager of the DDP. Mao Tsar Medh, the program manager, looks on. |
 The meetings sometimes go slowly because of all the interpretation involved. These sessions had two Finnish Sign Language interpreters, an Australian Sign Language interpreter, and two Cambodian Sign language interpreters. It is extremely important that the negotiations, held in English, are completely understood by all the deaf people involved since it is basically their program that we are talking about. |
 There were twelve of us involved in the meetings with FAD. (The Australian Sign Language interpreter was taking the picture.) The FAD staff really work this week, having meetings every day with different countries such as Tanzania, Mozambique, Georgia, Cambodia, Nambia, and Albania. |