Information
National Association of the Deaf (NAD) organized the Press Conference for Press/Media Release – Need Emphasis on Sign Language in the World Hearing Report at Indian Women’s press Corps, 5 Windsor place, New Delhi-110001 from 3.30 pm to 4:30 pm on 02nd March 2021. Mr. A. S. Narayanan, President of NAD and Mr. Anuj Jain, Executive Director have explained to 20 media persons related to World Hearing Day – Inclusion of Sign Language. Some of the media persons have questions with NAD Team for answering them.
The World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) is an international non-governmental organization representing and promoting approximately 70 million deaf people's human rights worldwide. The WFD is a federation of deaf organizations from 122 nations; its mission is to promote the human rights of deaf people and full, quality, and equal access to all spheres of life, including self-determination, sign language. NAD is a member of WFD.
World Hearing Day is celebrated on 3rd March every year. WHD is organised by World Hearing Forum (WHF), a forum under the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The theme for this year is: ‘Hearing care for all! Screen, Rehabilitate, and Communicate’. The World Report on Hearing will be launched on World Hearing Day. The Report has not highlighted sign language.
Following are the recommendations of the World Federation of the Deaf for the inclusion in the Report:
- Early intervention: Access to sign language at birth is a fundamental human right.
- Involvement of Deaf People in the policy-making related to the issues of deaf people.
- Sign languages should be recognized and integrated into all services.
- All deaf children and their families must have access to sign languages
Please find attached the recommendations, toolkit, and WFD position papers. WHO should emphasize on sign language as mentioned above.
Our further request to the Government of India is to :-
- Recognize Indian Sign Language as one of the official languages.
- Indian Sign Language should be included as one of the options of mother tongue in the Population Census 2021 and
- Rehabilitation and Education of deaf children must n necessarily include Indian Sign Language.
We at NAD been advocating all of the above for a long time. We need the media persons’ support to strengthen our voices. They deputed a reporter/photographer/camera team yesterday and helped this invisible community get the visibility that it deserves and badly needs.
A.S.Narayanan's Message to all: (YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQPRSs-YwBI
Video-shoot of the Press Conference: (YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV5Uf1CYXRQ