Helsinki

Helsinki now! I think that my last entry was rather superficial and rambly!!(If that’s even a word!!) I’m not sure why that is but I’m going to try to be a little less superficial in this entry but we’ll see how we go!!!!

Before the WFD conference, the only international event I’d been to was the Melbourne Deaflympics but that was kind of ‘home’ for me. I knew a lot of the people there and the ‘Australian way!’ so to speak! The WFD conference was a huge challenge for me, being in a place where the only people I knew were the Frontrunners and some Danish people I’d met THROUGH Frontrunners and they seemed to know a lot of the people there! I did know Colin Allen beforehand so one point to me! It was a bit scary but I survived!

We went to this education workshop the day before the conference began and I actually had to ask my group who the speakers were. (They turned out to be Marrku Jokinen and Liisa Kauppinen) I got many incredulous looks like ‘YOU DON’T KNOW WHO THEY ARE?!’ Needless to say, I know who they are now!!! We wore our T-shirts to the workshop and we were mistaken for interpreters!!

The conference, I shall only write my thoughts on it, the factual information will be on our website. (http://www.frontblog.dk/).

The first day of the conference, we wore our T-shirts again, armed ourselves with our flyers and approached people! We smiled and handed out flyers! I don’t know about the others but I got mistaken for a worker at the conference and I was often asked for directions to the registration desk, luckily I’d already registered so I knew where it was!

We got permission to make a short presentation about FR and about our T-shirts and flyers! I think it went pretty well, people were surprised and Minna even said one Finnish woman was crying cause she understood the message we were trying to send out…

I shall go through the presentations one by one..

Markku Jokinen, President, WFD
Perspectives of the World Federation of the Deaf on Standard Rules, Disability Convention and Other Human Rights Instruments

His presentation was similar to the one he made at the education workshop but it was good to see that what we’d been learning at Frontrunners was correct. What he said backed up what we’d already learnt so it was nice to get some confirmation! I was a little surprised that he chose to sign in Finnish but I understood what he meant when he said he felt that he couldn’t express himself fully in International Sign. I feel the same, kind of limited but that’s something I have to work on: expressing myself better in International Sign.

Gerard Quinn, Professor, National University of Ireland
The Rights Revolution in the Field of Disability - a Global Challenge

His presentation was cancelled because one of his children was sick so Marrku’s presentation went on for a bit longer, questions were allowed to be asked etc etc

Theresia Degener , Professor, University of Applied Sciences, Germany
A Human Rights Convention for all PWD: Challenges and Potentials

This woman really interested me. I’d never seen a person without BOTH arms. I felt kind of bad for staring but I wasn’t staring in an awful way. I was just amazed at the way she shuffled her papers, drank her coffee and wrote with her feet! Her presentation was great and she raised an excellent question…

“Should there be a right to inclusive education or a right to choose inclusive education?”

She concluded her presentation with….

“If we cannot cope with diversity in the drafting process of this convention, how can we expect society at large to cope?”

Powerful words…

Mona Pare, Associate Social Affairs Officer, DESA
The United Nations and the new convention: protecting the rights of all persons with disabilities.

I’m sorry to say but this presentation didn’t do it for me. It was basically her standing at the podium, talking for 45 minutes. No PowerPoint presentation, no facial expression…nothing… I honestly can’t say I remember anything she even said apart from “Please feel free to approach me in the break”.


Ekki Tuomioja, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland
Human Rights and Globalisation

I don’t really have much to say about this presentation so I will leave it at that!

Saturday proved to be a much better day presentation-wise!!!

We had..


Sheika Hissa Al-Thani , Special Rapporteur on Disability, United Nations
Standard Rules, Human Rights Instruments and Convention of Disability Rights

Her presentation seemed good; I was getting interested in what she said until the end where she was unable to answer questions. She had to get someone else to answer them for her!!! So I wasn’t too impressed by that!

Wilma Newhoudt-Druchen, Member of the Parliament of South Africa
Global Rights of Deaf People and People with Disabilities and How We Implement Our Rights.

Her signing was very ASL so I didn’t need to watch the American interpreters I’d been watching throughout the conference. Don’t get me wrong, the International Sign interpreters were brilliant but I wanted technical words and a little more in-depth information. Anyway, Wilma basically focused on South African methods. She gave plenty of examples which was great.. She’s a member of parliament and she explained how she got into parliament. One person asked a question- “The work you do, is it for disabled people or for deaf people specifically”. She admitted that she got in parliament through a disability organisation and that most of the work she did was for disabled people but still made a point of raising deaf issues.

Thorsten Afflerbach, Administrative Officer, Directorate of Social and Economic Affairs, Council of Europe
Protection and Promotion of Sign Languages and the Rights of Their Users in Europe: Activities of the Council of Europe.

I think I might be rambling again! Thorsten Afflerbach’s presentation was interesting. The basic sum-up of his presentation was that Council of Europe is a political organisation with 46 member states and 800 million people. It aims to protect human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Sign Language has been put on the political agenda of the Council of Europe and a report taking stock of the current status of sign languages in various countries has been published. There are ongoing discussions about protecting sign language.

After his presentation, the first thing that came to mind was...‘Damn, Europe has it all!’

Helga Stevens, Member of Flemish Parliament, President, EUD
Deaf people: from invisible citizens to full citizenship through sign languages. How Deaf empowerment and regional networking can make the difference?

The last presentation of the conference- it was very informative. Helga explained about the EUD and their sign language projects in 1996 and 1997. One part of her presentation was ‘Deaf People have to Network’… and she talked about deaf advocacy and awareness raising. She concluded with “Deaf peoples’ identities will broaden drastically in a world where Deaf people are not looking for some identity but creating it. The future is also something that is created”.
While writing this, I’d forgotten that she said that but when I’m reminded of what she said, I’m reminded of how deaf people constantly point out the things in their life that they’re not happy with but do they do anything about it? NO! The people I really feel sorry for are the ones that DON’T realise that they have problems! I’ll probably bring this up again in the next two and half months!!!

There were two events after the conference each day. Friday had the tour and the reception. I went on the tour and let me just say, it wasn’t worth the 25 euro we paid for it. We got taken to the opera house, chimes of some sort and a disability access church amongst other things we had to look at out of the bus window!!! Not impressed!!! We went to the reception at the city hall where the mayor said a few words and we all mingled... It was fun. Saturday, there was a march and the gala dinner.. I didn’t go on the march but apparently it was a good afternoon. The gala dinner was kind of superficial, fake smiles and moving around but it wasn't all bad!!!!!! I did make some new contacts so I guess that’s a positive thing! We went to the pub afterwards and night became day!

On Sunday, we went to the FAD 100 year’s ceremony with the Finnish minister. Then we hurried to our hostel to grab our bags and got our plane back to Denmark! Sweet home sweet! Castberggård has really become like home the past five weeks! I was so glad to see my bed and my pictures on the wall!!

Overall, it has been a great couple of weeks. We’re all catching up on things we need to do, tomorrow we have Yerker Anderson coming to present for 2 days…

I think I have rambled long enough. Over 1500 words!!! I was talking to Ammy about it before, she responded with “They’ll just know that you have a lot to say!!”..Signing off now….

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