2012 EFHOH Newsletter Nr 2 May

NEW

SLET

TER Headlines in this issue...

INTERVIEW WITH JAN LAMBY The full story at page 12

SIGNAGE - AN IMPORTANT PART OF ACCES-SIBILITY TO HARD OF HEARING PEOPLE.

Read the story page 14

Published by the European Federation of Hard of Hearing People

Edited by Marcel Bo-beldijk and Niels-Henrik M. Hansen.

Deadline for the next newsletter is June 1. /2012. Please email your mate-rial to [email protected]

APR

IL 2

012

ACESSIBLE SOCIETY – Myth or reality for Hard of Hearing Peo-ple?

See page 6

EFHOH

2 EFHOH NEWSLETTER | APRIL 2012

EFHOH President letter

The year 2012 started very suc-cessfully for EFHOH. A lot of events and actions took place and we are pleased to have a new member organization in Poland called PFOS. CopenhagenLidia and I were present for EFHOH at the European Union Presidency Conference on Disability with the theme Accessibility and Partici-pation = full inclusion of people with disabilities in Society. Also Knut M was present at this event in Copenhagen and he represent the Disability Council of Norway. Important is to know that accessi-bility is a concern for everyone, not only for people with disabilities. As the demographic changes lead towards an ageing population in Europe, accessibility should be taken in to account across a wider range of policies than just disability policy. We need to make sure that products, services and the built environment are accessible to all, regardless of their ages, ability, or status in life. Universal design is already used with success but there are many areas in which it has not yet been adopted to any great extent.

JerusalemI was in Jerusalem, together with the other IFHOH board members for the IFHOH spring board meet-ing. And also for the Bekol (the Hard of Hearing organization in Israel) accessibility seminar in the Hearing Centre in Jerusalem. It was a great honor for me to give a presentation about the situation in Europe and accessibility in general. It was nice

EFHOH NEWSLETTER | APRIL 2012 �

to listen to the very interesting presentations and to meet so many enthusiastic hard of hearing people.

BrusselsLidia Best and I also participated in the Spring 2012 Euro-pean Platform of Deafness, Hard of Hearing and Deafblind-ness meeting with the great support of our young speech-to-text reporter Simon Best (son of Lidia). He did a great job so that this platform meeting was accessible for Lidia and me.

We have a very nice logo now and we will sign our agree-ment cooperation paper at the EDF AGA 2012 in Copenha-gen. EUD has made a nice video clip http://eud.eu/videos.php?action=view&news_id=167

WarsawFor me it was really nice to be back in Poland after so many years. In 1991 I was also in Poland for the IFHOHYP Sum-mer holiday/camp in the south of Poland. And now in the weekend of �1 March I was back in Poland, but this time only in Warsaw, where we held our spring EFHOH board meeting together with a seminar organized by our new Polish member organization for Hard of Hearing People. In this EFHOH newsletter you can read an article about this event. PFOS, welcome in our EFHOH family and in behalf of the EFHOH board thanks for organizing the very interest-ing seminar and we wish you success as a board team and other members of PFOS success in all your work to make Poland accessible for Hard of Hearing People.

BergenWe as EFHOH board are looking forwards to meet you at the IFHOH world congress in Bergen/Norway. This event starts on Monday 25 June with the EFHOH Annual General Meeting (AGM). At 09.00 is the registration desk open and we start 09.�0 with the AGM.

Yes correct, we start one half hour earlier so that we have more time to discuss the many topics on our AGM agenda. In the afternoon at 14.00 the IFHOH AGM is started and in the evening the opening ceremony of the IFHOH World congress is held.

SubtitlingIt will be fine when you as our member, answer our letter about subtitling and it is very important that you send the actual percentages of subtitling in your country, to us before the 1st of May. So as you know, last year Lidia and I made the EFHOH policy paper about Subtitling in Europe. We need from you the up to date subtitling percentages and the prognosis for 2012, so that we are able to make an updated version. This all for our goal subtitling of all TV programs for everybody across Europe.

Museum projectIn this EFHOH newsletter you can read an interesting arti-cle about the Dutch museum project in the Netherlands. Do you have also a project to make museums more accessible for hard of hearing people in your country? I hope to meet you in one of the accessible museums of Bergen/Norway, the beautiful city where we hold our IFHOH world congress 2012 in summer.

CallIt would be fine if you are able to write an article for one of the EFHOH newsletters of 2012, Also this year we try to make 5 EFHOH newsletters for you and all your members. Yes we make the EFHOH newsletter also for the volunteers and hard of hearing people in your national and local or-ganisation. You can send your article to our email address [email protected]

Warm Regards,

Marcel BobeldijkPresident of EFHOH.

Lidia at the meeting in Copenhagen.


Saturday 2� February the Bekol symposium on accessibil-ity was held, with the participation of the International Fed-eration of Hard of Hearing People (IFHOH) board members.

It was a great honour that I had the possibility to give a presentation about the current situation of accessibility in Europe.

Other speakers were,

Ido Granot, the executive director of Bekol, he gave a pres-entation about accessibility in Israel.

Anat Shalev, interior designer, she informed us about designing our homes for better hearing.

Dovrat Nutman, audiologist of Bekol, her presentation was about Telecoil, the Gateway to hearing richer tones by means of hearing aids.

Naomi Schik Porat, audiologist of Bekol, she informed us about Public accessibility, things you should know.

This symposium was very well accessible for hard of hear-ing people, by means of loops and speech to text reports. The lectures were also translated from hebrew into english and from english into hebrew by speech to text support.

It was very nice to participate in this symposium, and to be able to meet people of Bekol. It was also interesting to visit the Hearing Information Centre.

In the photo you see the speech to text reporters, working for the IFHOH board in the english language,For the Israel participants they worked in the hebrew language, you see this on the big screen in Hebrew.

More information about the IFHOH board meeting in Israel in the next IFHOH Journal.

A SYMPOSIUM on ACCESSIBILITY

EFHOH NEWSLETTER | APRIL 2012 5

Wednesday 28 March 2012 Twenty-four hard of hearing and deaf volunteers have been busy to take a survey of the dif-ferent levels of accessibility of more than 100 museums in the Netherlands, since February. This is being organised by the “museum action”, organised by the Signal team. Why this action?In many museums staff and personnel are not aware of the (in) accessibility for deaf and hard of hearing people. For-merly the information used to be written down, so this was far more accessible for the hearing impaired. But recently museums have discovered the audio tour, where the visitor receives an audio appliance plus headphone, and the visi-tor can listen to the information about the exhibition while walking. Fun for hearing people but not very useful to the 1.5 million Dutch hard of hearing and deaf visitors let alone for all other international visitors. The Signal team wanted to introduce the term “accessibility for the deaf and hard of hearing” to the museum staff.

In order to make museums more accessible to deaf and hard of hearing people, Signal wants to inform them and wake them up to this problem. Museums are being con-fronted with economic cuts and they are being forced to gain their own income. If museums offer larger accessibil-ity, this implies a considerable increase of their reach of visitors. So it is also very important for their own sake to improve their accessibility. After the introduction the museum will receive individual advice on how to make it more accessible.

Start of the actionA museum action of “Signal “ started during a few meet-ings in February and March. Signal offered an efficient tool to the volunteers, in order to register the accessibility of museums, a checklist with which they screen the museums. Since March these volunteers have visited several muse-ums in order to advise te staff how to become accessible in a creative and striking way, for all hearing impaired people. ExperienceThe first couple of experiences can be mentioned already. One volunteer said: “This museum can be rendered much more accessible by subtitling the text in the Dutch lan-guage. Now the audio tour is completely inaccessible. A good solution for some hard of hearing people is the induc-tion loop. But creating a number of text cards for the audio tour is a very cheap alternative”.

One other reaction: “At the counter things go wrong already. I don’t understand what the receptionist is saying, most of the time. It is striking how few museum staff knows any-thing about accessibility at all. This should be improved”. Possible solutions

Museums can increase their accessibility by captioning or subtitling, to provide audio tours with induction loops, in-stalling a complete induction loop in the cinema or screen-ing room. Sometimes a couple of cheap efforts make do, such as providing the printed texts of audio tours. For mu-seums that really wish to create a proper result, also many new technics have been made very attractive. What about a tour inside the museum, equipped with a tablet (iPad) at which the texts have been printed out, and in which sign language films are shown?

What is being done right now?“A couple of museums are working hard at it already. For instance the Rijksmuseum in The Hague, the film museum FOAM in Amsterdam, which organise tours for hard of hear-ing and deaf people. Sometimes it is nice initiative if a mu-seum does not wish to apply any structural improvements, but if they do wish to organise a tour for hearing impaired people. This is also a form of accessibility.

Each step is 1 step, and also these single steps will be promoted by us. Hoorwijzer.nl (relevant website) shows which museums are equipped with a general induction system, and whether this system is an adequate system. Also in other countries there are some very nice examples: the Atomium in Brussels provides tours with written texts (Dutch, French, German, English) and several types of sign language, by means of an iPad. This implies an equal ac-cessibility, and moreover it is fun to be guided through the museum using modern gadgets,” Signal informs us.

DevelopmentIn July 2012 Signal will provide an intermediate report about the progress.At the end of 2012 the team of museum advisors of Signal will write down a top 5 of the museums which are the most accessible for deaf and hard of hearing people, and a prize will be awarded to the most accessible museum.

Large scale Museum action 2012, “Signal Team”


Warsaw, Poland, �1 March 2012

On the eve of the “Sign Language and other forms of com-munication Act” becoming a law in Poland, EFHOH Board held a seminar organised together with our new member: the Polish Foundation of Hard of Hearing (PFOS).

PFOS and EFHOH worked together to highlight lack of understanding for hard of hearing and deafened people needs, and the fact that new Act, despite having “other forms of communication” in the name, it doesn’t support the speech to text interpreting needed by many HoH or deafened who do not use Sign Language. The current situ-ation means, that any HoH or deafened person needing support in communication will only be offered sign lan-guage interpreter, they can’t ask for STTR as they are not recognised as an equal support. There is no requirement for public offices to fit an inductive loop system either.The seminar on Saturday gathered subtitlers, captioners , providers, representatives of other associations and many hard of hearing people to discuss the current situation in Poland with respect to provision for those with hearing loss with special focus on subtitling access.

We listened to personal accounts of growing up with hear-ing loss and education barriers, presentations from those who work in the subtitling field, also presentation about inductive loop systems and Marcel gave presentation about EFHOH work in EU.

We received a very good feedback from those attending as for many, there was lots of new information.

This event was the actual follow up from International Summer Holiday in Szczyrk last Summer, where for the first time we introduced speech to text reporting in Poland. Our speech to text reporters in Warsaw, Petter and Oskar Thorin , our speech to text interpreters, became instant celebrity showing that HoH and deafened people can have equal access via text.

Day earlier, we held our Spring Board meeting at the office of INTERGRACJA, a disability organisation supporting our work.

I arrived in Poland a day earlier to deliver training to mem-bers of PFOS; “The art of Assertiveness”. The aims of the training was to equip young HoH people with tools to deal with ignorance towards their needs and how to be asser-

ACCESSIBLE SOCIETY – Myth or reality for Hard of Hearing People?


tive and yet….not seen aggressive. I was very pleased with the positive response from students, showing the need of this kind of confidence building training for affective advocacy and lobbying.

One of highlights was a visit to the National Theatre on Thursday 29th March, where I was able to experience IR loop system and live captioning. The event at the theatre was possible thanks to a project called “Beyond silence and darkness”. The project receives public funding to enable those with hearing and vision loss to enjoy the theatre in Warsaw.

I would like to use this opportunity to thank my fellow Board members for the support they gave to help raise awareness in Poland and to all those who participated in the seminar.Special thanks to the Board of the Polish Foundation of Hard of Hearing also to “Shalom” and “INTEGRACJA” for help in making this event possible. Please read the report written by the participants of the event, it was so inspiring to see young people getting active in advocacy.

Lidia Best – Smolarek EFHOH


Below reflections of some participants about the meeting:

David : “The meeting in Warsaw drastically changed my life. It opened my eyes to the fact that hard of hearing people are not left without any help and have the support of many organizations, national, European or international. Until my arrival to Warsaw, I lived in unconscious of that there are various technical aids for the hard of hearing like: FM systems, induction loops, or simultaneous translation - Speech-to-text (STT). I am extremely glad that the Polish Foundation for Hard of Hearing People (PFOS) was set up, which is going to fight for inductive loops and simultaneous text (STT) into general use in public places for the hard of hearing all over the Poland. I identified himself with hard of hearing group, which I owe a lot. I always thought that I was deaf, without any possibility of the development of better hearing, because I can hear distorted sounds and do not understand verbal speech. In Warsaw, I realized that I am not alone. It changed my attitude to me and other people.

Through participation in training: “The art of assertiveness” I understand that the hard of hearing should not be missed in verbal contact with society. I’m all very much grateful and sincerely thank you.”

Anna: “My opinion about the meeting is positive. I think that there should be more such meetings and discussions about

our situations and solve common problems, give feedback and how should it be. The meeting was very interesting and useful. It shows that we are not alone and we have similar situations. I am very pleased and it was nice to meet new people and meet again with friends.”

Kamil: “I would like to express my opinion that I have after the training and seminar in Warsaw. I am very happy that I could be there and meet many wonderful people who have similar problems with hearing as me. I liked the training on assertiveness, which resulted in the fact that I learned many interesting things about what kind of rights we have and how we should fight for them. Interesting part was also the conference, where I learned about a loop and how it can be used. Topics such as subtitles for the deaf, how EFHOH works and speech of our friends, who told about his life experience, were interesting. I do not regret that I was together with the best friends in Warsaw Seminar. The event was one of the greatest moments in my life and gave me a lot of confidence in myself. I hope such meeting and training are not the first and not the last. I also hope that I will find out many other interesting things that maybe I do not know”.

Marcin : On 29th April this year, I came to Warsaw for a seminar and training. I really like to meet in such a friendly group that consists of people like me. I am hard of hear-

Reflections from the meeting in Warcaw


ing person. I wear hearing aids since childhood. I grew up among hearing people. However, I met with the Deaf, but I do not feel part of their world. I have always felt strange, alienated in this group, and among the hearers I was a third wheel. Here, in the group of hard of hearing I thought this is it. I understood everything. I was able to function normally. I’m happy that I could meet such people. I was one of the participants of the show in the theatre. I usually do not use like going to theaters, because I did not understand what’s going on. There were subtitles above the stage and I used an FM system in order to understand the actors better. I left very satisfied. I’d love to go to another show, of course, with subtitles. The second day assertiveness training was

How is speech to text done in Germany? Which equipment do they use in Iceland? What system is faster? Voice recog-nition, or Keyboard of Velotype?

How is the payment done in Europe? Are there any ethics codes ? Do they use their own code? What should a STTR (Speech to Text Reporter) do or not do according to his/her client?

These are the questions amongst STTR’s. And that is the reason for ECOS2012.

ECOS2012 stands for: European congress of Speech-to-text Reporters. A congress for and made by STTR’s.

The taskforce ECOS 2012 is formed by members of the Association of Dutch speech to text reporters (NSV). Gea Duister, Annemieke Solleveld, Lolkje Timmerman en Joke Vring are busy to prepare this congress for � days in the weekend on 24-26 August 2012.

During this congress we will have workshops dealing with technical issues, linguistic research, and interpreter strat-egy, also about ethics code and how to deal with the text made by the STTR? Simply give it or sell it?? To whom then? The client or the speaker?

We already have some enthusiastic reactions from STTR from Sweden, Ireland and Italy.

held. The training was in my opinion, very nicely done by Lidia. There was discussion about how we should behave in a given situation. Each participant told a story and how they behaved. Next, Lidia explained if that person’s behav-ior was appropriate or not, providing her reasons. I left the training wiser and with more self-confidence. I saw the first time Speech to Text interpreting. I liked it, but it would be nice if it were also in Poland, because then I would under-stand more. I hope there will be more such meetings :)

By Paulina Lewandowska & Magdalena Rosowicz

But this congress is not only for the STTR it is also for users who are invited to come to Nijkerk on Saturday from 14.00 till 17.00 hours.

We will set up information stalls with lectures on technolo-gy and online-text-interpreting. Organisations, companies working with or for STTR’s will present themselves. You will be able to see the differences in the countries also during our speed contest.

We hope to see you on Saturday afternoon, time 14.00 till 17.00 hour..

The location:

In the Forum, next to Regardz Nijkerk, Ampt van Nijkerk Berencamperweg 4, �861 MC Nijkerk the Netherlands

If you are an STTR’s and did not receive an invitation, we are very sorry! Would you like to come? You are most welcome, please send an e-mail to: [email protected] or take a look on www.ecos2012.nl. You can visit us on facebook of follow us on twitter!

European Congress of Speech to Text Reporters


An interview with

Knut Magne-EllisenWhen did you get for the first time in con-tact with EFHOH?

I was a member of the committee preparing the forming of EFHOH.

Can you tell something about yourself and your work at local and on national level in your country?

I started as Secretary general for the Nor-wegian organization of HoH in 1986 and was working fulltime until 199�. In 2004 I was elected as Chairman for the HoH clubs in Oslo and in 2006 I was elected as President for the national organization of HoH in Nor-way – which with its 55 000 members is the largest organization for disabled in Norway.

I have decided to leave my position asPresident at our congress in June 2012.

When did you join the board of IFHOH/EF-HOH and why? Who were in the board? What have you done within IFHOH/EFHOH?

I was elected as board member in 2007 and as Vice-President in 2010. I have been especially interested in building a strategy for EFHOH with both strategic and opera-tional goals.

What is your opinion about the role/tasks of EFHOH as a European NGO for HOH people?

Since decisions made by EU have a big impact on all nations in Europe, it is impor-tant that we can be the voice of HoH. Even if we have seen some improvements the last years, it is still many challenges!


Can you tell something about your experi-ences in EFHOH?

I think the voice of EFHOH has become stronger and stronger and that decision mak-ers now are listening to us. We have – and shall have – a board who work well together and where each one istruly engaged in giving HoH a better life.

Can you tell something about the co-opera-tion between EFHOH with IFHOH and IFHO-HYP?

I think the relation is good. But there will al-ways be some improvements. I am very happy that we in IFHOHYOP have so many engaged young people which I hope we will also see in EFHOH in the future.

What was for you personally the most impor-tant subject/moment/topic in your period?

Accessibility in general and building new organizations of HoH.

What was the most sad or difficult moment/topic in your period?

Nothing special, but we need a better econ-omy so we can be more active in areas where we should


When did you get for the first time in contact with EFHOH?

Through conversation with former Secretary Monica Steorn, Sweden, and when attending nationalmeetings in my organisation.

Can you tell something about your-self and your work at local and on national level in yourcountry?

I have been active in my organisa-tion over 25 years. The last decade I was the President of theCounty organisation, the District, which is an umbrella organisation for the local clubs.

When did you join the board of IFHOH/EFHOH and why? Who were in the board? What have you done within IFHOH/EFHOH?

I was elected Secretary in 2005. I was asked by our President at national level, if I was willing to be a candidate for the election. I have been interested of the international work and especially in the field of accessibility. This has been my main task in the board, apart from being the Secretary.

An interview

with

Jan Lamby

EFHOH NEWSLETTER | APRIL 2012 1�

What is your opinion about the role/tasks of EFHOH as a European NGO for HOH people?

Very important, we still have a lot to do. We all often experi-ence many examples of bad accessibility all around Europe.

Can you tell something about your experiences in EFHOH?

During my time we have had excellent boards, with good and open discussions. The only failure was when one board member very unexpectedly left in the middle of her term of office. But no one could be blamed for that, and the gap was filled up on the next election.

Can you tell something about the co-operation between EFHOH with IFHOH and IFHOHYP?

The relation EFHOH – IFHOH is a good one I would say. But there is still some constitutional uncertainty, because EF-HOH once was created out of IFHOH and formally EFHOH is regarded as a Region of IFHOH. This situation is not clearly visible in the EFHOH Statutes. EFHOH’s relation toIFHOHYP is good I suppose; and of course very important: We need to get the young people involved, and when they leave the youth organisation because of age, we hope they will be interested to work in EFHOH.

What was for you personally the most important subject/moment/topic in your period?

Loop systems and subtitling; In the first topic EFHOH hosted through our Swiss member an International Confer-ence in 2009, which was a success and was followed up by a second one.

In Subtitling we have managed to get support from the Eu-ropean Parliament and the European Commission. A great improvement of our advocacy. Personally when we got an agreement with HRF in Sweden to have our “office” there; and administrative support from an assistant personthere. That meant a substantial lowering of EFHOH Secre-tary’s work-load, which in turn enables myself to put energy and time in more important tasks.

What was the most sad or difficult moment/topic in your period?

Most difficult and something EHFOH still suffer from, was probably when the board member mentioned above left. Because she was responsible for the website, and no one of the remaining board members had sufficient knowledge to become a real web-master. Today it is extremelyimportant to have a good and interactive website. Unfortu-nately for volunteer organizations like EFHOH, this costs a lot of money if it’s done by professional people.

How do you see the future of EFHOH?

I see a bright future of EFHOH, although there is a econom-ic cloud hanging over us at the moment.

I hope that we through better and closer contacts with the decision makers in Europe, are able to lower the current barriers to hard of hearing people in Europe.

Congresses, like Vancouver and the loop system confer-ence are very important. What do you think about their role in future?

The world congresses are business that belongs to IFHOH; what they decide is up to them. But I think it is important for both IFHOH and EFHOH that these congresses continue to be a meeting place for both people from hard of hearing organizations and professionals; thus creating a goodexchange of experience.

What were you going to do in your free time when you had left the IFHOH/EFHOH board?

As I am still in the board, I don’t think about that situation yet.


Ever since the first hearing loops were installed, one im-portant part of the installation has been signage. A clearly visible and eye-catching sign, so that when attending a concert, or going to a meeting room, you immediately know to switch your hearing aid to the “T”-position. There are of course other kinds of accessibility to hard of hearing peo-ple: Tactile devices like vibrating alarm clocks; subtitling on TV etc. But the loop or other assistive listening system remains the most common and important accessibility to hard of hearing people with hearing aids.

During the past decades, many different solutions to the sign problem have seen the daylight. Almost every country had its own design of a symbol intended to show acces-sibility. For example in Scandinavia they used a big “T”, to show a room was equipped with a hearing loop. In Austria they used the logo of the ÖSB, the Austrian Hard of Hear-ing Association, and developed the design adding a picture of a “coil” together with the logo.

In 2000 the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, ETSI, adopted a new standard: “Human factors; Symbols to identify telecommunications facilities for deaf and hard of hearing people”. This standard specified a number of symbols for accessibility such as hearing loops; text telephony etc. The basic symbol is a graphic picture of an ear with a diagonal stripe across. The standard also offers possibility to add some smaller pictograms for dif-

ferent kinds of accessibility: A “T” for induction or hearing loops etc.

Despite this European standard, it was not recognized by all countries. A kind of resistance remained, because many people simply did not like the design of this standard. One of the objections is that the diagonal stripe resembles of a road sign, declaring “hearing is forbidden”. In North America however, they had used since long a symbol with a design very close to the European standard.

To the EFHOH Annual General Meeting, AGM, in Dublin 2008 the Finnish Federation of Hard of Hearing, FFHOH, had motioned for an action to solve this mess. The aim was to create a new symbol, to be officially adopted by the organizations of heard of hearing people, EFHOH or IFHOH.At a following joint board meeting of IFHOH and EFHOH, the boards commissioned two of their members to work with this project. They were Ahiya Kamara, Vice President of IFHOH; and Jan Lamby, General Secretary of EFHOH. The project started with collecting information about the symbols currently used in connection with accessibility to hard of hearing people: Rooms of all kinds equipped with hearing loops; information counters at terminals for railway and at airports etc.

At a new joint board meeting, the boards finally decided to propose the Bi-ennial General Meeting (BGM) of IFHOH in 2010, to officially adopt the European standard symbol.

Signage - an important part of accessibility to hard of hearing people.


Note: The standard does not specify the colours used in the symbol. The left picture is the geometrical construction of the symbol, taken from the ETSI standard. A recommendation taking into consideration the needs of persons with visual impairmment:The ear, the stripe and “T” in white; the background in a sufficiently dark hue of blue, green, or black. (In Sweden there exists a standardized method of measuring contrasts, provided by the Scandinavian Colour Institute.)

The reason was that it would consume too much time, energy and money, if we tried to make a new standard. The BGM followed the proposal in Stockholm, Sweden in June 2010. By this decision, there is now only one symbol for ac-cessibility to hard of hearing people which is fully accepted by the organisations of hard of hearing people. This design should be promoted and used world wide. Of course the sign is no guarantee for the functionality of a hearing loop. In the EFHOH Accessibility Guidelines we provide good information about the installation of loops and accessibility in general.

A strong recommendation when using the symbol now adopted by IFHOH, is to add some kind of explanatory text or commentary. The symbol, with or wihtout the small “T”, does not clear enough explain what kind of accessibil-

ity you provide. Examples: In a cinema it could mean it is equipped with a hearing loop; but it could also mean the film shown has subtitles. Another example: A hotel wants the show on their website they are accessible to hard of hearing people. Does it mean the rooms have tactile devices like vibrating fire alarm/alarm clocks or are the meeting rooms at the hotel equipped with hearing loops?

Correctly used, signage is an excellent way to provide infor-mation, not only on site, but to enable people making plans for visiting cinemas, museums, theatres and much more.

ConclusionUse this symbol!

Written by Jan LAmby

Violence against people with disabilities is an important public health and human rights concern. There is increasing attention to violence against people with disabilities in the United Kingdom and other countries around the world, with increased media reporting on the topic and growing public awareness of hate crime. Additional research is required to better understand the issue.

In line with a public health approach to violence prevention, WHO has commissioned Liverpool John Moores University to produce systematic reviews of data on the prevalence and risk of violence against adults and children with disabili-ties. Published in The Lancet, the first of these reviews has indicated that adults with disabilities are at much greater risk of violence than adults without disabilities. In fact disabled adults are 1.5 times more likely to be a victim of violence than those without a disability, while those with mental health conditions are at nearly four times the risk of experiencing violence.

The Lancet article The systematic review of violence against children will be published later this year. To inform and improve policy and practice in the field, further research is required to explore risk and protective factors and underlying causes for violence, as well as evidence for interventions which either help prevent

violence against people with disabilities in the first place or improve outcomes for victims.

In the context of the Disability Studies Association annual conference in Lancaster, United Kingdom, to be held from 11-1� September 2012, WHO will host a roundtable presenting the evidence from the systematic reviews, together with papers on risk and protective factors and on the evidence for the effectiveness of interventions. In this regard, WHO is issuing a call for papers based on empirical data, whether from quan-titative or qualitative social research. Papers which discuss the situation in low-income or middle-income countries will be prioritized. If you are a researcher, policy-maker or practition-er working in this area, and you would like to present a paper on violence or interventions to prevent violence, please con-tact Tom Shakespeare ([email protected]). Two bursaries of £500 are available to support participation by researchers from low-income or middle-income countries. The deadline for expressions of interest and abstracts is 16 April 2012.

For further information about the Disability Studies Associa-tion annual conference, visit www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/events/disabilityconference/

For more information about WHO Disability and Rehabilita-tion, visit: www.who.int/disabilities

Violence against people with disabilities


The Collaborative for Communication Access via Caption-ing (CCAC), www.ccacaptioning.org, is an international volunteer membership community that advocates for inclusion of quality captioning universally, in everyday life. Access to information is vital for millions of people who are deaf, deafened, have a hearing loss, need access to a for-eign language, or to improve literacy amongst the general population.

The CCAC Meeting in London, UK, 11th March 2012. From Giacomo, CCAC member in Italy:The CCAC meeting in London was very interesting and I had the occasion to meet Lauren Storck, founder of the CCAC, for the first time. The two-hour meeting included full verbatim speech-to-text translation, in English, by STTR provider Norma White. We were 14 participants, both consumers and providers, from 5 countries (UK, USA, Italy, Netherlands, and Germany) at the round table in the of-fices of STAGETEXT, http://ww.stagetext.org/ ,who not only provided the space, but also STTR and refreshments for all. It was nice to meet and work with all there, have good discussions, and do active planning for the new media cam-paign to raise awareness about the needs for captioning (subtitles) in all countries. To begin the working meeting, Lauren asked each of us to introduce ourselves with our name, country, and our thoughts about the main hurdles preventing more inclusion of captioning now.

For example I said, “I’m Giacomo, I’m a hard of hearing per-son, and I’m collaborating very much with the Italian Asso-ciation of Hard of Hearing people to advocate and spread inclusion of captioning in different sectors (TV, sport, events, etc.). In Italy only a few hearing people are aware of our needs for captioning in everyday life. The percentage of captioned TV programs is still low (only �0%) compared to other countries, e.g. in the UK, and it’s still rare to find theatrical shows and cinemas that include captioning.

Revised Article about CCAC Meeting in London on 11th March 2012 for EFHOH publication

In the first part of the meeting, we continued around the table, and it was valuable for us all to meet others face-to-face. Each person added important points about current hurdles, both from a consumer perspective, and also from the provider point of view. We also mentioned some efforts by different groups, e.g. deaf, deafened, and hard of hear-ing groups.

We reached the conclusion that one of the major hurdles for spreading inclusion of more captioning is that the very large audience for captions is largely invisible. Closely related, there was agreement that lack of awareness of our needs is widespread, that there are not enough avail-able providers, and that some clearer way to explain that speech-to-text is a human right is needed (as sign language is an accepted right for others).

In the second part of the meeting, we developed a plan for the new CCAC media campaign to include THE FILM, see http://ccacaptioning.org/film-instructions-script/ , as well as newspaper articles, in print and online, other media where energies are contributed from each country. CCAC invites all to collaborate.

We decided, for THE FILM, to invite people to submit short videos they create themselves, using the CCAC script, now online. Our aim is to demonstrate the wide and different audience for captions, and to illustrate the breadth and va-riety of areas of life where lack of captions means denied access to information. THE FILM will be short, to have the most possible impact online – we all hope the FILM will be very popular and go viral online!

After this work meeting, with a short break, several of us went to the National Theater to see a captioned perform-ance of “Comedy of Errors” - live captioned by Stagetext. It was a good occasion to see one type of theater captioning allowed in this large theater. There were 4 black panels on

THE NEW CCAC CAMPAIGN FOR CAPTIONING ADVOCACY

By Giacomo Pirelli and Lauren Storck


We need your help! The CCAC (Collaborative for Communi-cation Access via Captioning, all volunteers, www.ccacap-tioning.org) has created plans for a new international campaign to raise awareness about so many needs for captioning/subtitle inclusion every day.

With CCAC members and others, both consumers and pro-viders, CCAC is making THE FILM. We invite your submission ASAP, before the end of April, using our script. Please read more here: http://ccacaptioning.org/film-instructions-script/ and email us with any questions.

It’s easy and fun to participate. Using a web camera, iphone, or camera with video, prepare, then film or ask a friend to help. Spoken English is requested please.

the top right, top left, lower right, and lower left, off to the sides of the main stage. All panels had the same lines of text, the captioning being good and accurate. It was only the language of Shakespeare that was a little difficult to understand at times, Old English. Lauren continues here: It was wonderful to meet Giacomo and all the others in London, who took time and joined the working meeting, some of us coming from far away. As all reading know, meeting face to face (as you will do in Norway soon) is so nourishing. Several others were unable to attend on this day, due to various reasons, and we hope all keep in touch for this project and developing collabora-tions.

The energy and level of discussion at the meeting was high and it was suggested we continue to meet in person whenever and wherever we can, and to continue discus-sions online. A smaller team met again in London also, to plan THE FILM and to move ahead as quickly as possible in this ambitious new project for volunteers. Time is short and flies!

The team is working hard and needs your help! Please read the page on the CCAC web about THE FILM now, and help us find video submissions. Do one yourself, or with a friend. It’s fun and easy to do, using your camcorder

(web camera) or any mobile phone with video, or similar. We really want your contributions! And they are due before the end of April please Email [email protected] to request how to submit your segment. We will use a dropbox system, so as not to overload anyone’s computer. We ask all to follow the same simple script, or parts of it, speaking in English.

A professional editor will select the pieces from all videos we receive. We aim for a fast-paced video, delivering the message that “We are everywhere and we want access to everything” to mirror these statistics: The World Health Organization states that, in 2004, over 275 million people globally had moderate to profound hearing impairment (one in five people globally). .

When the film is ready, we hope to have the “premiere” at a major international conference this summer. After that, it will be freely available to all your associations for distribu-tion.

Finally, we thank the Sponsors for the project so far. Their generous contributions will help make this project a reality, and we invite you to read more about sponsorship here: http://ccacaptioning.org/sponsors-international-media-campaign/

We would like deafened and hard of hearing people to film themselves talking about how poor access to information affects them. We want the film to deliver nthe message that “We are everywhere and we want access to everything!” Please send for the script soon – email to [email protected].

Submitted by L. E. Storck (CCAC)

Captioning Access for All – Please Read and Participate


The European Platform of Deafness, Hard of Hearing and Deafblindness had their spring meeting on 15 of March in Brussels. EFHOH was presented at this meeting by Lidia Best and Marcel Bobeldijk. For the first time the meeting was accessible to us with thanks to the great support from Simon Best (Lidia´s son) as our speech to text reporter. And I can say to you that he did a great job.

Other representatives at this meeting were,

EUD Mark Wheatley and Annika PabschEURO/CIU Hendrik FehrEDBN Ricard Lopez and Lucy DrescherFEPEDA Guus Coenen and Bernard Daly

Topics of the meeting:

• EDF response to European Accessibility Act - in general all the platform organisation were happy with the EDF Response to the Public Consultation with a view to a European Accessibility Act. We sent this some weeks ago to all our EFHOH members.

• EDF Board candidate - we are looking for some candi-dates for the EDF board elections 201�.

• Signing of Agreement - at the EDF AGA in Copenhagen in May we will sign the formal agreement co-operation paper.

• Press release - we will make a press release to inform other about the intentions of our Platform and present ourselves to the public.

• Seminar at the European Parliament - the idea is to organise a seminar in November 2012 atthe European Parliament related to our main topic on accessibility (statistics, communication, access to information).

• Logo - the platform have now a logo.

• News from organisations - it was very interesting to receive the information what are other platform mem-bers activities. Very nice to know that and see the lot of interesting topics and policy papers they are working on.

Our next Platform meeting is 18 of July2012 and of course Lidia and I will inform you in the EFHOH newsletter about the results.


Pressrelease: EDF

Copenhagen, 4th March 2012 /// The leaders of the Europe-an Disability Forum gathered on the �rd and 4th of March in the capital of Denmark for their board meeting. This meeting was organised just before the Danish Presidency Conference on Accessibility and Inclusion where the dis-ability movement will present how the EU has to improve accessibility for 80 million citizens with disabilities.18% of the population in Europe remains unable to enjoy their full right for mobility, which prevents persons with disabilities access to studies, to work, and more generally to full integration in society. The leaders of the disability movement have focused on five crucial issues where the EU institutions can bring a major change:-The access to the internal market through the European Accessibility Act,-The EU legislation for accessibility of websites-The anti-discrimination directive-The integration of disability in the EU Multiannual Finan-cial Framework 2014-2020-The alarming effects of the economic crisis1 Upcoming European Accessibility Act is a key milestone The President of the European Disability Forum Yannis Vardakastanis stressed that “No goods and services should be allowed on the EU internal market unless they are acces-sible for persons with disabilities. We call on the European Commission to come forward with a strong proposal for legislation on accessibility before the end of 2012”. For EDF, to be effective this Act should have:-a scope as broad as possible-a clear and extensive definition of accessibility covering all aspects and domains including among others e-services, safety even in case of emergency, and mentioning the need for interoperability and affordability of accessible goods and services.-a clear reference to the relationship between accessibil-ity, sustainability and quality of life during the whole life circle cycle-basic accessibility requirements for goods and services in the frame of Universal Design’s approach.Hosting the event, the chair of Disabled People Organisa-tion Denmark, Stig Langvad reminded: “Lack of accessibil-ity will not reduce costs. On the contrary, it will bring more costs to member states. This is why the crisis cannot be the excuse for lack of action. The organisations of persons with disabilities should be fully involved in the shaping of the act as well as during the monitoring and evaluation phases of its application”.2 Accessibility of public websites

Under the Digital Agenda, the European Commission for Europe committed to produce legislative proposal on accessibility of publicly-related websites. It is now time to act and the European Commission must propose binding EU legislation ensuring that public websites and websites delivering basic services of public interest are made acces-sible as soon as possible and no later than 2015. A web-ac-cessibility legislation giving the focus on access to content is complementary to a binding Accessibility Act which targets accessibility of goods and services. EDF believes both are necessary.� The anti-discrimination directiveThe disability movement urges the members states to go ahead with the anti-discrimination directive and make sure persons with disabilities and other groups have the same rights as any other European citizens.4 The integration of disability in the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020The MFF is one of the indispensable tools to promote equal opportunities and accessibility for persons with disabili-ties for the next decade. EDF board members have adopted a resolution to ensure the inclusion of the rights of persons with disabilities in the MFF being in process of negotia-tion this year. The disability movement wants to add a new article to mainstream disability. This new article would cover all issues that the European Commission has to mainstream and should include the rights of persons with disabilities and in particular the CRPD. This resolution also calls to include accessibility for persons with disabilities as a condition in the legislative proposal for the MFF in order to ensure that all EU financial instruments won’t create more barriers for people with disabilities in Europe. This proposition also covers all the European Union external action instruments. The promotion of Human Rights and the inclusion of 1 billion persons with disabilities worldwide has no borders.5 “We won’t pay for the economic crisis”The EDF calls on the European institutions and all the Governments of Europe to ensure that the rights of per-sons with disabilities are not undermined by the current responses to the economic crisis. EDF President Yannis Vardakastanis stated: “Right now, persons with disabilities are struggling to keep their salary, their pension and their social benefits. Although we have been ensured by the European institutions that persons with disabilities would not pay for the crisis, extremely negative effects of the austerity measures are being reported. This is unaccept-able: 80 million European with disabilities don’t want to pay for the crisis.”

ACCESSIBILITY ACT: “A BINDING LEGISLATION IS THE ONLY EFFECTIVE OPTION” SAYS THE DISABILITY MOVEMENT


Center for Research and Education

of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (CED)

Address: 4 Nguyen Thi Huynh, Ward 8, Phu Nhuan District, HCMC

Tel: 84-8 6683 7494

Ho Chi Minh City, Feb 19th, 2012

Dear Sir or Madam,

People with hearing impairments are comprised about 2.5 million (or �.2 percent of total population) in Vietnam. As they have got low educational attainment and cannot find jobs as easily as others, most of them are very poor. The most important reason of all is that many cannot access hearing aids which are considered “supportive ears” for the Hearing Impaired in their early intervention.

Established in 2011, the Center for Research and Education of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (CED) has been considered the pioneer in serving the Hearing Impaired in Vietnam. Its mission is to promote the full integration of the Hearing Impaired into the society through education. CED has been providing various services to uplift the Hearing Impaired, their parents and their teachers through counseling, advocacy, publication and training on sign language, lip-reading, lifeskills, teaching methodology and employment skills.

Being aware that the inaccessibility of hearing aids much prevent children with hearing loss to maximize their potential abilities and possibility, CED has recently tried to create the Hearing Aids Fund. The Fund mainly aims at providing used hearing aids and early intervention to poor children with hearing loss.

CED would like to request individuals, companies and organizations to donate any new or used hearing aids or little financial support for the continuing operation and development of the Fund. CED do commit to use all kind supports on Hearing Aids Fund to help the Hearing Impaired better study and communicate with others for their more confidence and social integration.

For further information, please do not hesitate to contact CED at email [email protected] or [email protected]

Warmest regards,

Duong Phuong Hanh CED Director Cel: 84-909 114 006 (text only)Email: hanhdpvl8�@gmail.com


Bergen is called “The Gateway to the Fjords”, and in a couple of hours you will find the most amazing sites. For example you can go on a one day trip called “Norway in a nutshell” or on cruise with “Hurtigruten” for a couple of days or the whole trip “almost to the North Pole” and back. It is called “The World’s Most Beautiful Voyage”.

Bergen is worth a visit by itself. It is a World Heritage city with a lot of interesting sites. It has a very compact centre and the hotels are just a few minute’s walk from the famous Grieg-hall which is the venue for the congress. Surrounded by seven mountains, but at the same time open to the ocean it is a very special city you have to experience your-self.

Welcome to Bergen and Norway in June 2012 and get an experience you will remember for the rest of your life!

IFHOH World Congress in “The Land of The Midnight Sun” 25.-28.06.12

The last week of June 2012 hundreds of people with hearing problems and professionals will meet in Bergen, Norway for the IFHOH World Congress. The congress is only arranged every fourth year, last time in Vancouver, Canada.

The main theme for the congress is “A Better quality of Life for Hard of Hearing”. Every day there will be two plenary sessions followed by parallel sessions. Several speakers from all over the world will participate, both well known professionals and hard of hearing. The program is of high quality and will give the participants a view into the future.

Go to Norway with an open mind and you will leave inspired and exited!

The whole program you will find on the website: www.ifhoh2012.no

Here you also can sign up for the congress, book hotels etc. NB! Sign up before 01.04.2012 and you will have a special “early bird” fee!

And if you will like to see more of Norway when you are here – you will find several possibilities on the website.

A BETTER QUALITY OF LIFE FOR HARD OF HEARING


The European Federation of Hard of Hearing People consists of National Associations of/for Hard of Hear-ing and Late-Deafened People, Parents’ Organisations and Professional Organisations.

EFHOH comprises the European members of the International Federation of Hard of Hearing People (IFHOH) and was established in 1993. It has its own board and secretariat. The federation has non-profitable and benevolent aims and it is a non-political and non-sectarian organisation. EFHOH is a general member of the European Disability Forum (EDF). We also work in good co-operation with IFHOH and our official lan-guage is English.

The Board members of the EFHOH carry out their work on an honorary basis.

EFHOH - European Federation of Hard of Hearing People

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You cannot miss the IFHOH World Congress 2012 in Norway, the Land of the Midnight Sun!The last World Congress was in Vancouver, Canada in 2008.

The next one will be in Bergen, Norway, June 25 to 28, 2012!

The theme for the World Congress in 2012 is

“A Better Quality of Life!”

À ne pas manquer, le Congrès mondial IFHOH 2012 en Norvège, le pays du soleil de minuit !Le Congrès mondial précédent a eu lieu à Vancouver, Canada en 2008.

Le prochain sera à Bergen, en Norvège, les 25 au 28 juin 2012 !

Le thème du Congrès mondial 2012 est

« Une meilleure qualité de vie ! »

Documents

2012 EFHOH Newsletter Nr 2 May