Conference News!

It was a great day in the history of ASLI that we were able to host a national conference with 3 international speakers. and thats not all. The diversity of the speakers as well as the participants was amazing. A linguist, a deaf professor, a rotary volunteer educationist, an interpreter, and a deaf blind person; 3 from abroad came together to make a wonderful conference experience for the 50 odd persons who gathered there.
The attendees had students of ISL, parents, researchers, deaf people, CODAs and professional interpreters as well. what a mix and what a fun two days.

Dr. Madan was the key note presenter and he came up with some really funny gags to keep everyone in splits. The Dupatta interpreter was a particular favorite. ha! He was talking about how indian girls when they interpret they are continuously fidgeting with their clothes and particularly the dupatta. ha! Good one!

An amazing two days. Just the energy around the table and the expectancy and the hope was tangible, almost could touch the excitement in the air. What a cool suggestion came from someone in the audience who is a student of ISL. He said as casually as possible " I was looking in all the bookshops for a sign language book but could not find one."

It is really crazy why nobody has ever mainstreamed the ISL handbook. Simple get a publisher to pick it up and then they publish it and it goes into the regular book network and thats that. so simple! My god!! why didn't anyone think of it before??? or maybe they did and they just did not say anything. Any way its got me thinking!!!

countdown to conference!

WE are all on the edge of our seats and the excitement is running high. all eyes on tomorrow when the national conference of sign language interpreters begins.
Its so encouraging to be receiving confirmations from across the country for the conference and yet its like being on a high-wire walk across the grand canyon. Very very scary.
The stage is set and our speakers are here. The program is finalised. I somehow feel the future of indian interpreting is all going to be there tomorrow. The core team of interpreters who were bold enough to spend their own money and come and participate without knowing very much about us. are we going to be able to fulfill their expectations?? this is in my mind. Are we going to be able to take on the onerous charge of running this organisation effectively.
The need is simply huge. the new signntalk video interpreting relay service is due for launch and the while country is watching. its a really emotional high time. i feel so relieved and at the same time apprehensive. a series of conflicting and confusing emotions as we go in to the conference tomorrow.
Hats off to the team tho. they have been ultimately wonderful. the support of my beloved staff and friends has as always been a bulwark for me in every new venture we take on and i am so thankful for that support.
HERE'S TO TOMORROW!!!!

count down to the conference!

The mood is exciting and the office somewhat turbulent.... Everybody is going for the burn. That is the mood right now in my office and the crackle in the air is the upcoming conference of interpreters. more and more are registering and the event promises to be a humdinger.

I have been meeting with a few terps from across the country recently and everyone really wants to come. some cant of course and that is really too bad. Hope fully the effect of this conference and the advocacy after this conference will help the indian terps to get their long awaited due of respect and recognition for the profession. this will automatically help the profession to grow into a serious career option for the future. The idea of having no remuneration for a job you do is not a very enthusing prospect and so interpreters who are now working are a dedicated lot who really would like to see change.

I hope to give it to them thru a series of changes in policy and procedure and if all goes well, Govt intervention. The powers that be are also aligned for the change and they just don't know it. the 11th Plan clearly mandates the training and development of interpreters. Its just a matter of time before we catch up to them.

Its time to have all deaf people everywhere seeking out and searching out interpreters and friends who know signs and encouraging everyone to really beat the bushes for the people who know how to sign and have them all come and work among deaf persons empowering deaf people to communicate.

COMMUNICATIONS CARD

Deaf people in india are often beaten to ensure that they are really deaf. No... its true. this is a common test performed by police men and other authority groups such as random mobs, groups of rambunctious youth on a rampage and so on.

I really dunno how useful it will be in a heated situation but we just developed a communication support card for our deaf members. A simple plastic card to be carried and shown to any one to let them know that you are in fact deaf and are not able to speak and communicate as others do with few tips on talking/communicating with deaf people on the flip side. A plug for the internet video relay service, Signntalk.org and The Association of Sign Language Interpreters is added and you have a neat little card that says most of it.

We are doing pilot test with the group at the National Deaf Youth Conference starting on 25th jan. I will be back with feed back.

Indian sign language website!

Indian Sign language and the Interpreter situation in India has received very little attention and as such it has been an uphill struggle to get anyone to understand the importance of the access issues the deaf face. We have been trying in vain for years for people to understand the issue and accept the fact that interpreters are an integral part of the intervention the deaf people of India need to be able to participate in society and be included. This has had no effect on any of the ones we have spoken to beyond tut-tutting and a pat on the back.

So we had to take decisive action to promote and promulgate Indian Sign Language in any way possible. We started with leaflet distribution in 2004 and VCD soon after.We have just launched the first website to use video to showcase and teach Indian Sign Language. The site went up last week and we are just through checking it. So this is an invite to all the people who really want to learn and see Indian Sign Language in action. The site is out there at www.deafsigns.org

The marathon production took over a 18 months to complete and finalise and finally design and upload. A team of deaf people worked on it for vocabulary and choosing dominant and popular signs. the film work and the editing was also done by deaf people. a completely indigenously made website with a lot to offer.

We plan to make a DVD of the entire site with sentences in Sign language included and grammar notations to enable student of Indian Sign Language to access learning at home.

The Deaf Way had made the first VCD of Indian Sign Language years ago and that has been the mainstay of the teaching process at The Deaf Way for some time. This new Website has taken it to the next level and we really hope that many people will be able to access and use it to learn.

so go there and check it out.

www.deafsigns.org

FEEDBACK PLEASE!!! SMILE!

The view from over here!

There is a heck of a long way to go for the interpreting community in India. The whole recognition of sign language debate is still not going anywhere and the Govt is already racked with enough languages to sink a ship. Adding sign language to the apple cart is just one more thing. And thats about that.

I was just thinking lets go whole hog. Lets challenge the hearing people out there with their national language definition and put their ideas to the test. If we had a hearing person from all over India who only spoke one official language each then we would have 18 people because there are 18 languages in the constitution. If these 18 folks got together and tried to talk they woul;d get nowhere fast because nobody understand anyone else at any level. then we get 18 deaf people from all over the country from the various language areas as above and the 18 deaf folks have a rip roaring great time talking about everything under the sun.

Who's "dumb" now???? Huh???

So is that settled then???

QED : Indian Sign Language is the only really national language in the country today being used across the country by deaf persons for communicating without barriers.

So how about the scoffers put that in their pipe and smoke it!!!!!

Interpreting Conference in February

The ASLI is now having its second conference on a national scale in India in February in Delhi. Its a wonderful opportunity to get senior experts together to discuss INterpreting and Sign Language and deaf access issues. Senior leaders in the field both deaf and hearing have confirmed to attend and by all accounts it should be a wonderful event.

The goal wold be to of course get a lot of publicity thru the deaf community and also in the general media as to the importance of interpreters and the access issues that deaf people face on a daily basis which others don't realise.

Efforts are on even now to get Govt agencies and ministries to participate and gain experience about these critical issues before formulating policies on these matters.

The issue of community interpreting which is by far the most relevant one for a country such as ours wit a population of 10 million deaf persons will be addressed at the conference in detail. I am looking forward to having a number of interpreters who have been working at the grass roots level across the country coming in to share their own experiences and the work that they have been doing. While the presentation will be rather specialised and illuminating in their own way I feel that the ground realities are the indicators by which we will need to chart our future. These will be the most valuable inputs and we hope to capitalise on each attendees experience to guide us.