Equal Rights for Deaf People
19-20 September 2003
| The Deaf Development Program offers training to the staff throughout the year, but it was decided that this year, in connection with Deaf Awareness Day, sometimes called the International Day of Deaf People, normally held in the last full week in September, we would have a workshop for all the DDP students and staff to learn more about equal rights for deaf people. The workshop was held 19-20 September in Phnom Penh. |
 Interpreting is a major concern at any event involving both deaf and hearing people. It is a particular problem in Cambodia because there is only one official interpreter for Cambodian Sign Language. At this workshop we used six interpreters. Here Liza Clews meets with some of the interpreters before the first session to go over their roles and assignments. We used five or six interpreters simultaneously most of the time: one sign language interpreter from Cambodian Sign Language to spoken Khmer; a voice interpreter from Khmer to spoken Thai; a sign language interpreter from spoken Thai to Thai Sign Language; a sign language interpreter from international signs to English; a voice interpreter from English to spoken Khmer. It got a bit tricky at times! |
 Here on the first morning, the parents who accompanied their deaf children are introduced. This was the first time that we brought together all the DDP students and staff and some of the parents. The first day of the workshop was a bit intimidating to most of the parents who were not used to being in a signing world (most of them do not know sign language) and who didn't know each other or any of the DDP staff. They started to bond together, though, and I suspect that some of the most important work of the three days happened in the three hotels where we put people up and where the parents had a chance to meet each other, talk to each other, and share their experiences and ideas about the problems they face as parents of deaf children. |
 Carol-lee Aquiline is the General Secretary of the World Federation of the Deaf. Her office is based in Helsinki, Finland. n She spoke to the whole group on the first morning about the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) and then about the concept of equal rights for deaf people. |
 DDP has about 120 students in Phnom Penh and four provinces, and they all came to the workshop, some of them with their parents. One of the negatives of the workshop was that we lost track of how many young children we have in our programs, and the first day of the workshop was not geared for them and we bored them. The venue for the workshop was one of the few places in Phnom Penh that are available for such gatherings, the lecture hall of the National Institute of Public Health. We utilized both the hall and another classroom when we split into smaller groups. |
 Two special presenters at this workshop were Surachet Lertsajayan (pictured here) and Surasak Chittasettak, both from the National Association of the Deaf in Thailand. We had know them from the World Federation of the Deaf meetings in Montréal in July, and invited them to speak on equal rights for deaf people in Thailand. Surachet pointed out the similarities in the Khmer and Thai cultures and probably helped to create a bond between the two countries, something which is needed at all levels of society after the January riots here in which the Thai embassy and Thai businesses were burned. |