NSW Government strategy for employment in disability sector proves its worth

A NSW Government strategy to boost employment in the disability and community care sectors launched in March is already proving successful.

21st International Congress on the Education of the Deaf (ICED 2010) meeting in Vancouver, BC addresses issues of the 1880 Milan Congress

At the opening of the ICED 2010 Congress, July 19th, organizers addressed the Deaf Community’s concerns regarding the Milan resolutions of 1880, which banned sign language in educational programs for deaf children.

Inquiry condemns inadequate funding for students with disabilities

A NSW Upper House Inquiry has thrown down the gauntlet to the state and federal governments to provide more money and support for students with disabilities and other special needs in NSW public schools, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.

IT is as big as a woman's purse, sits in a seat drink-holder and has the potential to bring cinema alive to hundreds of thousands of deaf or hearing-impaired movie buffs.

New technology will start being rolled out later this year in major movie cinemas, making it possible for deaf and blind people to follow the film they are watching.

Mr Kenneth W Tribe passed away yesterday at the Sydney Adventist Hospital, aged 96 years.

Mr Tribe was on the Deaf Society Board  from 1942-1982, President Australian Deaf Societies 1975-1977, Australian Deafness Council from 1975-1982, and Deputy Chair Australian Caption Centre from 1982-1994.

Mr Tribe was appointed Vice Patron of the Deaf Society of NSW following his retirement from the Board. The Kenneth W Tribe Fellowship Fund (which provides financial assistance to Deaf and hard of hearing people wishing to study) was established in his honour.

To read Mr Tribe's obituary in The Australian, click here.

A deaf woman who took a legal challenge after she was disqualified from serving on a jury has won part of her case in the High Court.

A North Melbourne product designer is a contender on the world stage for his invention that enables the deaf to feel sound.

The Deaf Society of NSW recently completed an assessment of the organisation's direction, reaffirming its vision to achieve equity for deaf people while identifying key areas for the Society to build on over the next three years.

Speech-to-sign language translation software written by a team from Thailand won the main category of a Microsoft-sponsored software development contest for students, the Imagine Cup, on Thursday.

RIDBC Alice Betteridge School is working hard to collect points and build a vegetable garden next term, which will give the kids hands on sensory experiences.

RIDBC Alice Betteridge School (K-12 school for kids with significant vision and/or hearing impairment and a degree of intellectual impairment) run by 22 volunteers from Vodafone. It’s an annual event enjoyed by both the volunteers and kids. (photos)

A trio of deaf musicians are tuning up ready to take the stage.

... This year's competition was particularly significant because the Jamaica Association for the Deaf (JAD) decided to use the medium of dance to spread the message of HIV/AIDS prevention to the deaf and hearing-impaired community.

The world’s first blind and deaf theatre company is bringing its critically-acclaimed play to the London stage for the first time.

Actress Genevieve Barr tells how she went from a hop-on part as a rabbit to landing the lead role in a chilling new BBC drama.

A deaf pupil from Penarth has helped create a special poster to mark the 2010 Deaf Awareness Week.

Australian Theatre of the Deaf is commencing a new partnership with Arts Access Victoria that will secure the future of this unique performing arts company.

Linlithgow is to be made Scotland’s first deaf- aware town under an ­innovative new project run by the national school for the deaf.

As a boy growing up in a South Yorkshire pit village, Michael Parkinson would sit and play dominoes with his redoubtable grandparents after school. There was very little else he could share with them – no family anecdotes, no wartime memories, no tales from school – because they were profoundly deaf.

A new institution will offer Afgan children the opportunity to live better lives.

Sitting cross-legged on a stool in the garden of the north London home she shares with her boyfriend and four friends, Genevieve Barr is lip-reading my questions before answering them.

... He was there to learn American Sign Language to communicate with his older brother, Adrian, who is deaf and legally blind. It didn’t take long to figure out the sign language he was using at home was very different from the real thing.

A group of deaf and dumb people who were tired of living from begging have come together to start income generating projects in Harare.

A non-profit organisation that assists the disabled, launched a new deaf-support programme on May 2 and announced the placement of 25 hearing-impaired children into local schools.

Yasmeen and her husband Abrar Shah were thrilled to be expecting their second child and sibling for their happy, healthy son Hasan.

The recent budget announcement by the Queensland State Government to award over four million dollars to the “Hear and Say” Centre in Brisbane perpetuates and reinforces the view that deaf children should be educated in a manner that has proven to be unsuccessful and denies deaf children the opportunity to acquire Auslan (Australian Sign Language). The type of methodology and practice promoted by the Hear and Say Centre is in breach of the UN Convention on the Human Rights of people who are Deaf.

Lalain Darunday, 21, of Corella, Bohol, is hearing-impaired. When she was in Grade 5, she chose to drop out of school because she could not understand anything being taught in class.

Pope Benedict chose the setting of St. Peter's Square to ask forgiveness from the thousands of abusive victims molested by Catholic priests over the years...

Pope Benedict's Own History in Covering Up Abuse Was Examined This Year as Reports Emerged That Showed His Involvement in a Case Where a Milwaukee Priest Molested Deaf Children.

After the great success experienced at the Australian Deaf Poker Championship tournament in 2009 in Sydney, a tournament dedicated to deaf, which attracted 88 poker enthusiasts, another appointment is coming and it is planned for October 8th and 9th, 2010 in Melbourne.

The government has decided to include a hearing impaired person in the newly-formed committee which will draft the new disability act, activists of groups working for the disabled said Wednesday.

Mobile Sign Language Systems, LLC recently won Ann Arbor SPARK's Eastside Innovation Campus (EIC) pitch competition.  Besting four other finalists, Mobile Sign Language Systems won an engagement of up to $50,000 in business acceleration services, a one-year incubator lease at SPARK East and a package of additional start-up services including a one-year chamber of commerce membership.

Jersey's Eisteddfod will play host to the first ever national competition for signing choirs in the Autumn.

My university professor told me that you know the stone that you trip over the best. Language is the stone that I’ve been tripping over all my life.

In a first for sport, FIFA said video reports from all 64 matches of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa will be broadcast in International Sign on its website.

Video reports from all 64 matches of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa will be broadcast in International Sign on FIFA.com.

In Senate Budget Estimates Hearings on Monday, Greens Senator Scott Ludlum asked the ABC and SBS questions about funding access.

The story of Wenlock and Mandeville - the official London 2012 Olympic and Paralympics mascots respectively -  can now be viewed online as an audio described YouTube video.

EDSA (Educators of Deaf Students Association) and the Deafness Centre, Children's Hospital Westmead, hosted a conference last week entitled ‘Building resilience in students and teachers’.

Birmingham’s new Lord Mayor is campaigning for children at every one of the city’s 430 schools to learn British Sign Language.

.Griffith University has produced a set of four DVDs, Signs of Success, which look at the experiences and achievements of Deaf and hearing impaired students at the university, and the support services provided to them there.

DFA is looking for hard of hearing players and Deaf , Impaired Men and Women, Boy and Girl Football Players. They also wish to seek players to represent their States as Victoria, Central Coast, New South Wales and Queensland. They are looking into setting up States team from Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania.

Live pro-wrestling at Aqua Jetty this Saturday, June 20, will feature what is thought to be a first for Australia – profoundly deaf wrestler Jonathan Hardy (20) will make his debut in the ring to live out a dream he has held for many years.

It is with great regret that the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf Executive Board announces the cancellation of the 17th Winter Deaflympics in Slovakia.

The broadcast date for Dearbhla Walsh’s latest television drama, ‘The Silence’, which filmed on location in Dublin, has been moved to a prestigious “Event TV” primetime broadcast slot following a preview viewing of the first episode by BBC Scheduling head.

Registrations are now open. The World Congress will be held in Durban, South Africa, on 18-24 July 2010.

Deaf Australia is calling for papers to be presented at its 2nd National Conference (and 25th Anniversary Celebration) to be held in Hobart, Tasmania, from 13-15 May 2011.

A YORK charity is asking people to “switch off their ears” at a special deaf awareness event this weekend.

Poley was born deaf but she is able to row competitively because Casey Rowlinson, the coxswain on her boat, uses sign language to signal race tactics and practice drills.

The Hannah Montana star is taking on the challenge after she wasn’t able to communicate with a young fan had lost her hearing in L.A. recently.

Deafness services innovator Ai-Media today launched ‘Ai-Live’, a world-first service that provides live captioning of classes to deaf and hearing impaired students in mainstream schools, at the Sixth National Deafness Summit in Sydney.

Former Hi 5 star and current Today FM radio personality Charli Delaney is “letting her crazy out” for LOUD SHIRT DAY on Friday 14th of May to help raise awareness for deaf and hearing impaired children across Australia.

The General Directorate of Passports has started training its employees on how to communicate better with the hard of hearing at Saudi airports and other entry points as part of its efforts to improve facilities for disabled people.

The language barrier that sometimes exists between deaf students and other students prompted the school to ask for the addition of American Sign Language to the district's foreign language offerings.

Deaf Australia is delighted with today’s announcement that the Australian Government will establish an SMS emergency service for people who are Deaf or hard of hearing.

School officials have threatened a hearing-impaired girl with suspension if she uses sign language to talk to her friends on the school bus, the girl's parents say.

The AUSLAN Info Bytes resource, developed by NSW Industrial Relations in
collaboration with the Deaf Society of NSW, has won a prestigious Minister’s award.

People with disabilities in Australia live on a lower socio-economic rung than most. People with a disability have poorer educational qualifications, have a higher rate of unemployment, earn lower wages on average, have a reduced life expectancy of up to 20 years, are three-times more likely to be a victim of violent crime and, are far more likely to be the victim of a sexual assault than the rest of the population.

Emma McAuley became the first person in the Republic of Ireland to use a specially trained hearing dog to act as her ears when Chester came into her life last year

Emma McAuley became the first person in the Republic of Ireland to use a specially trained hearing dog to act as her ears when Chester came into her life last year

Lismore’s Andrew Parry was born profoundly deaf, which means it’s difficult for him to communicate in words, but his artwork speaks volumes.

Did you know that on the same day that the big four cinemas responded to questions asked of them in relation to their application for exemption to Disability Discrimination Complaints Hoyts released their profit figures? Last year Hoyts generated box office takings of $1.1billion dollars.

Minister for Employment Participation Mark Arbib today launched the Rudd Government’s new $1.2 billion Disability Employment Services.

During this spring of 2010, the Finnish Parliament is discussing the new legislative proposal for Interpreting Services for the persons with disabilities (i.e. Deaf, Deafblind, hard of hearing and deafened persons, and persons with severe speech disorder).

The sun was not yet up Tuesday in New Orleans, and Kristin Ates, a slim 18-year-old with long, shiny brown hair, was decked out in Tulane swimming gear, sitting on the deck of the Reily Center natatorium waiting to begin her final practice before heading to Houston this week for the Conference USA Swimming and Diving Championships.

ITV SignPost is celebrating the UK’s first-ever Deaf Heritage Month with a series of features about key figures and events throughout history which have shaped modern D/deaf culture.

Training for deaf people and their families in voting and international sign language began on 22 February in Juba, Central Equatoria State. The training aimed to boost awareness of the electoral process among the state's deaf population, so that they could participate in upcoming April elections and communicate through sign language.

Just imagine. Your son is born not only deaf but partially sighted. Obviously, you're heartbroken. You just hope that somehow, with your help, he'll have a decent life, that his handicaps will not be insurmountable.

Overseas crime syndicates are targeting disabled people in WA using a romance scam which has already fleeced two deaf Perth women of more than $100,000.

A Deaf traveller last night blasted airline staff for refusing to let her on a plane until she proved she couldn't hear.

The bustling paediatric audiology centre at the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children at North Rocks has just tested its 10,000th client.

The Board of Deaf Services Queensland wish to inform you that Damian Lacey offered his resignation as CEO of DSQ, effective from Friday 19 February and this was accepted by the Board at a meeting on Tuesday 16 February.

Before I was five, like most people, I knew my place in the community and soon discovered many of its benefits, including access to the public library, swimming pool and, of course, the local cinema.

Don't be surprised if a petrol pump attendant uses sign language when you visit one of the fuel stations in the city. He might be one of the hearing and speech impaired youngsters hired by the station owner for whom otherwise getting a job is a tough task.

This week on Four Corners, “Breaking Point”. The heart-rending story that tells what it’s like to live with a disability, or to care for someone who is disabled, in Australia today. Reporter Wendy Carlisle meets the families the nation has neglected.

ONE STORY: Amanda Royle’s 9 year old daughter Rosie is deaf and blind, cannot speak, and is intellectually disabled. On her own with two other children to look after, Amanda is in desperate need of assistance that the system cannot provide.

February is the month of our historic language movement. Bangladesh commemorates February 21 as the Language Martyrs Day. The nation remembers those, who on this day in 1952, gave their lives for the linguistic right of the Bangals. Now the day is celebrated by the world as the International Mother Language Day.

Well-Being Australia's Delma Tronson has a congenital hearing difficulty. For many years she has attended AUSLAN (Australian Sign Language) classes, held in venues from Moruya on the south coast of NSW to Tweed Heads, to The Pines in Queensland. Although these lessons have come in a variety of formats, she has now gained some aptitude in communicating in AUSLAN, and she finds it of great benefit.

Deaf Tennis Australia was kindly invited by Tennis NSW to attend the Medibank
International Sydney Showcase on Wednesday 13th January.

A nationwide protest was held in all capital cities on Saturday 13 February, 11am (local time) resulted in a fantastic turnout of more than 450 protestors.

Whilst the cinema may be one of our most popular entertainment spaces, it remains one of the least accessible.

With ONLY 0.3% of screenings across Australia being accessible to people who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind and vision impaired, the cinema industry is out of step with Australia’s social inclusion agenda. Only 105 of the estimated 41,000 weekly screenings shown nationally are accessible to these members of our community.

Mental health advisers use sign language on line to give support to deaf people in cases of stress, depression or suicidal thoughts.

Deaf children are having to resort to watching DVDs and reading dictionaries to learn sign language after the Government axed funding for teaching positions.

Conventum Arena, Idrottshuset Arena and Mellringe Sport Arena would be used as the
main three venues for the duration of the championships for both the men and women
competitions.

Emily LeCompte didn't learn sign language until she was 10 years old."I was born deaf, but I learned how to talk," she said. With the assistance of hearing aids, which she has worn since the age of 3 months, LeCompte can hear the spoken word, although her hearing loss is classified as being between severe and profound.

With financial support provided by the CalciYum “Kids can do big things” promotion, Deaf Basketball Australia is very pleased to be able to launch its new National Junior Development Camp program.

To see the flyer, click here.