Training is on!

We just started training in Bangalore a city in south India! We have 19 trainees including 3 deaf. It looks like a really good start of the course. Some people already have really good skills and all are really keen and motivated.

We are going to be having a really good course it looks like.

I am really keen to continue the work of training interpreters and hope to be able to get enough interest generated acros the country so that we are able to find motivated groups to take courses everywhere.

We are going to need interpreters all over the country as soon as the supreme court judgement on colleges and inclusive education come out. There is case in the supreme court now that is being decided and the court has asked for the systems that disabled persons need to be put in place. If all goes well then the facilities that university will have to provide for disabled persons will include interpreters for deaf student sin all universities and colleges in India. so deaf people will get the facility from the college free of charge. This will generate huge employment for interpreters in the country.

As we look forward to that day lets all improve our own skills.

go to www.deafsigns.org for ISL learning.

Kokata and the way ahead!

the recently concluded course in Kolkata only served to emphasise and underline what i have been saying for some time now! Deaf people will use whatever interpreters they have at hand, and those terps are the ones who need the support of and the guidance of trainers. they are already supplying the need of the def community and though they may not be graduates of "Gallaudet" or equally prestigious colleges they are walking the walk, talking the talk and they know the local variant far better than any one else.

From a development perspective and from the developing country point of view, i want to strengthen the hands of the ones who are already doing the job. I think one of my most humbling moments was when this interpreter working in the rural areas explained his work and how he was the only interpreter for hours in any direction. He was so serious when he talked of the local signs and how they were different to the ones that he was taught in the course he attended at a Govt institute and seeing him feeling guilty about using signs that the local deaf use and understand, was awful.

He is a young man, motivated, full of energy, loves deaf people, hangs out with them all day, works in a school for the deaf where he is the only signer, all he needed was that encouragement and a little more theory and practical tips and he is so so much better than he was earlier and we can check off one district on the emergency list.

Its for these young turks who are pushing the envelope out there that ASLI is working. We are going to work with the far flung terps who are desperate for inputs and so happy to hear that they are providing a valuable service and can charge for their services.

The 'free' culture still prevails in India but to find validation in this young chap was a major for me. We hooked him up to an urban org of def people who are desperate for a terp who is available and motivated. After a 30 min chat about all sorts of things he is now their weekend interpreter. super!