Low Pay Deters Interpreters!

Low wages have been identified as the main reason for the lack of qualified sign language interpreters to assist the hearing impaired.

The secretary-general of the National Office for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Kingkaew Inwang, said there was a real need for more interpreters to help those with hearing problems, but they had to receive a suitably attractive salary.

“The most important factor behind the shortage of qualified sign language interpreters is the low salary,” she said without giving details.

About 300 sign language interpreters are registered with the Social Development and Human Security Ministry. This compares with the estimated 700,000 people across the country who have hearing problems .

Social Development and Human Security Minister Issara Somchai told a recent meeting that interpreters recognised by the ministry would be given access to use all facilities to help people with hearing problems.

Ms Kingkaew said the hearing impaired needed help from interpreters for such things as job applications, participation in conferences and meetings, hospital visits and court appearances.

Applicants seeking registration by the ministry as a sign language interpreter must be at least 18 years old and be certified by a reliable organisation such as the National Association of the Deaf, the National Association of Thai Sign Language Interpreters or the Ratchasuda College of Mahidol University.

The president of the National Association of Thai Sign Language Interpreters, Maliwan Tammasaeng, said sign language interpreters should be available at all government agencies to serve the disabled.?..Source

How good is it in your Country?

Joey McIntyre Opens Up About Rhys’ Hearing Loss

When Dad’s a pop star, every minute of the day comes with a soundtrack.

“There’s always music in the house,” says New Kids on the Block’s Joey McIntyre, who lives in L.A. with his wife, Barrett, and their sons Griffin Thomas, 2, and Rhys Edward, 3 months.

But from the day he came home, the youngest McIntyre has heard little of it.

Rhys failed a routine hearing test at the hospital after he was born Dec. 13th, the couple tell PEOPLE, and extensive follow-up tests at UCLA showed that he had severe hearing loss.

Says Barrett, “What’s wild is we will never really know how [anything] sounds for him.”…Read more

Verona Deaf school ex-pupils tell Italian TV of sex abuse by priests - not for the fainted heart, explicating details…

The sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church came to the Pope’s doorstep last night as a group of victims appeared on Italian television to claim that two dozen priests had for decades abused children at a school for the deaf in Verona.

Three former pupils of the Antonio Provolo school who spoke on RAI, the state broadcaster, confirmed allegations made in a signed statement last year by 67 ex-pupils who described a regime of sexual abuse, paedophilia and corporal punishment from the 1950s to the 1980s. They said that 24 priests and lay brothers from the Company of Mary order were involved.

The three said that the priests had “fondled and masturbated” them as well as sodomising them in dormitories, bathrooms and the priests’ quarters.

Among the accused is Monsignor Giuseppe Carraro, Bishop of Verona from 1958-78, who died in 1981 and whom the local diocese has sought to have beatified, a crucial step on the road to sainthood.

Gianni Bisoli, 62, one of the victims, told viewers he had attended the school from the ages of nine to fifteen and had first been “the object of sexual attentions” three months after he arrived.

“I was sodomised and forced to have oral sex and masturbated by friars and lay brothers” he said, naming 14 of them. “From the age of 11 to 13, I was accompanied on several occasions to the apartments of the bishop of Verona, where the bishop himself sodomised me and made me have other kinds of sexual relations”. …Reda more

Please help because they have taken my Deaf daughter!

“I am a hearing mother of a 35yr old deaf daughter, who has a 4yr old hearing daughter.  Unusual circumstances, a lack of understanding of deaf culture, and a communication breakdown resulted in my hearing daughter taking custody of the 4yr old.  We are taking action in court to get her back.  Is there any information or connections with people in the deaf community who can help us?”

Click here to give advice!

Tax Tips: Phishing-Malware – February 2010

Even if you don’t give the information a scam email requests, you could still put yourself at risk by clicking on links or opening attachments. Watch this important video to find out how to handle emails that say they are from the IRS — because they are not!

PLEASE WARN EVERYONE – IT IS THAT IMPORTANT!!!

The news has just come out, a fraudster has been jailed for stealing deaf peoples hard earned money!

A woman whose dishonesty struck hard at the Christchurch deaf community has been jailed for 18 months.

Judge Brian Callaghan sentenced Christine Doreen Ticehurst to a prison term because he did not believe home detention was enough to make her accountable for the harm she had done to her victims and the deaf community.

He said Ticehurst, 49, had had an enormous impact on the deaf community whose members relied on each other for assistance and support. Her victims trusted her as she was part of the close knit community.

Ticehurst had admitted three charges of obtaining by deception, totalling nearly $102,000.

At her sentencing in the Christchurch District Court Judge Callaghan said Ticehurst volunteered her services to assist a deaf couple build a home. She showed them home brochures and faxed legitimate looking papers from lawyers and a mortgage broker.

The couple had given her over $84,000 after hard work and saving and it was a realisation of a dream, but the owning of a home in the forseeable future for them was now shattered, he said.

There was other offending going on at the same time, as she was borrowing money from another victim, and staying at a hotel in Christchurch and using its services which she could not pay for.

He said it was hard to gauge what the motive was for the offending, other than for personal greed.

The pre-sentence report said the money was used to buy a truck, a dog, and a trip for her former partner.

He said reparation was a forlorn hope but made an order for $50,000 at $70 a week to be apportioned on a ratio basis to each victim.

He said Ticehurst had affected the victims’ lives with such enormity that home detention was not sufficient.

The deaf community in the court clapped and one man said, “Well done,” as Ticehurst was led to the cells. …Source

Pope Benedict faces child abuse cover-up queries

Questions are being raised about whether Pope Benedict was personally involved in covering up a case of child sex abuse by a Roman Catholic priest.

Documents seen by the New York Times newspaper suggest that in the 1990s, long before he became Pope, he failed to respond to letters about a US case.

Fr Lawrence Murphy, of Wisconsin, was accused of abusing up to 200 deaf boys.

Defending itself, the Vatican said US civil authorities had investigated and dropped the case.

For more than 20 years before he was made Pope, Joseph Ratzinger led the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith – the Vatican office with responsibility, among other issues, for the Church’s response to child abuse cases.

Allegations that the Church sought to cover up child abuse by Catholic priests in Europe have haunted the Vatican for months…..read more

A lawsuit against the city of Mobile and Dollar General was filed today on behalf of Antonio Love -

A deaf and mentally disabled man whom Mobile police forced from a store restroom using pepper spray and a Taser last year, his lawyer said.

On July 24, 2009, Love was inside a Dollar General store restroom, feeling sick to his stomach, when police arrived in response to a call from a store manager who thought Love was inside too long.

“It is clear that what happened to Antonio should have never happened,” said his attorney Tommy James in a news release. “He has never had any run-ins with the law and he was not a threat to anyone. Once Antonio realized that it was the police trying to get into the bathroom, he put up no resistance and yet police still Tasered him three times.”

A Mobile police internal investigation last year ruled that police were justified in using a Taser and pepper spray to forcibly remove him because officers at the time did not know he was deaf, but a lieutenant erred by trying to send Love to jail after getting him out….Source

Group gives deaf animals a chance and trains pets with sign language

Deaf animals often are among the first to be euthanized by animal shelters — because of the perception that they are less adoptable, or that they cannot be trained. This is something that Amber Kay of Aurora feels strongly about, “because I’m deaf,” she said.

As president and founder of Aurora-based Fur Angels Animal Sanctuary, Kay started the organization in 2004 as a rescue mission for deaf animals in the Fox Valley area. She trains them using sign language and other hand signals.

“They are easily trained,” she said. “It’s all body language.” Kay communicates with humans by reading lips….Read more

Excellent Deaf Humor!

This is one of my favourite, just in case my readers might have missed it….I’ve shown it before but I had to show it on here…something to make you smile tonight

Deaf Comic Video – Click here for more free videos