WASLI Newsletter 2016 01

Dear friends and colleagues,

Newsletter

Issue 1 2016

As you begin 2016, the WASLI Board of Directors wishes you a happy and healthy new year.

Inside this issue:

President’s Message

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WFD-WASLI International 3

Sign Interpreter Accreditation

Following our Istanbul conference in July 2015, your board has been working to accomplish the mandate you gave us. To that end, our strategic plan has been completed, with input from each of the Regional Representatives. In addition, WASLI and WFD have also been able to finalize their work plan. These plans are both ambitious and realistic, if we have committed volunteers who will serve the association.

WASLI and SLLS

signed a Joint Statement

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EOI

Educational Modules 6 Committee – call for members

EOI Translation Coordinator & Translators – wanted

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Meet WASLI’s Social Media Team

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over the Reports from world

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Note of condolences

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Membership renewal

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To each of you who have stepped forward to work on a committee, we thank you. If you haven’t yet volunteered and would like to be involved, please see the two Expressions of Interest (EOI) in this newsletter. One of our important goals is to be able to produce a series of short educational videos, and we have secured a chair – our thanks to Simone Scholl, for her willingness to facilitate this work. We also have an EOI for a Translation Coordinator(s), and translators who can work into International Sign or produce translation in any number of other languages.

There are two more committees to mention: one of the other exciting committees that are recruiting volunteers is our Deaf Interpreter Committee, under the leadership of Nigel Howard.

He is recruiting Deaf interpreters from each of WASLI’s regions, so if you are a Deaf interpreter and interested in service, please contact him at dia.wasli@gmail.com. The other committee is our Fund Development Committee, chaired

by Chris Grooms and Bibi Lacey-Mould. Our thanks to them for their leadership and vision. Can you volunteer with them?

If so, contact fund.development.wasli@gmail.com.

In our Nov 17, 2015 update, mailed to you via our Mailchimp system, we reported

that I traveled in October to present at a

Deaf education conference in Dubai. This was an excellent conference attended by

many Deaf people and interpreters from numerous Arab countries. My thanks to the interpreters from that region for our

lunch time meeting and I wish you

continued success in your collaborative efforts to work with the Deaf community in order to advance interpreting as a

profession. From Dubai, I took some

holiday time in the Seychelles Islands and I would like to personally thank Anita Gardiner and members of the local Deaf

community for the warm welcome to the islands. While there I was able to support

Anita and her Deaf colleague, Shana

David, in meeting with the Minister

responsible for education and disability issues. Our meeting resulted in an

agreement that the government will

support Shana to attend WFD in Paris in 2019. Anita has been a tireless advocate

for the Deaf and interpreter community in

that region, from lobbying for quality education with a Deaf teacher, to working on interpreter training with partner

organizations from France.

She

exemplifies what it means to be an ally with the Deaf community, and I thank her

for her work and wonderful hospitality!

In this issue you will also see a photo of the training that was delivered by Liz Scott Gibson, Jonas Carlsson and myself in Saudi Arabia. Once again, our sincere thanks to Hend Al-Showaier for her tireless efforts in the region to provide training for sign language interpreters. 1 We enjoyed the opportunity to work with Deaf people from Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Bahrain, along with local interpreters.

Another exciting accomplishment took place in December 2015 – as you will know, WASLI and WFD worked collaboratively over the past 4 years to create an accreditation system for International Sign Interpreters who regularly work UN and high-level conference events. The rating took place this autumn, and we congratulate each of the interpreters who achieved this accreditation in the first invited round of applications! Thank you to Isabelle Heyerick who represented WASLI on the accreditation panel.

On January 05, 2016, WASLI and the Sign Language Linguistics Society (SLLS) signed a Memo of Understanding. Those of you who were in Turkey will recall that this was a motion brought forward by Dr. Christian Rathmann, and our national members unanimously supported it. Thank you to Dr. Robert Adam for representing WASLI at the signing event in Melbourne. The full text of the MOU has been posted on our website and via our social media.

Thank you to all of the national associations and individual members who are in the process of renewing their membership with WASLI, and thanks to Dee Collins and Patrick Gallaso for their work in processing the volume of applications. If you are not receiving our emails, please ensure that your individual membership is paid and contact our secretary to ensure you are in our database (secretary.wasli@gmail.com). If you are not seeing our frequent Facebook and Twitter feeds, please ensure you have a look at the great information that our Social Media team are sharing – and a big thank you to Suzanne Erhlich, Hend Al-Showaier and Lily Goh for their great work!

My travel and presentation schedule brings me a great deal of joy, and it was a pleasure to deliver a video lecture for ASLIA-Vic in Australia. The videos were produced in December and will be part of a conference for educational interpreters in that region. Thanks to Julie Judd for that invitation!

In 2016 I hope to participate in joint presentations and trainings with WFD. At this time we are considering invitations from Bahrain and Ecuador. So, as you can see, there are many people working hard to grow this association and to strengthen interpreting in every WASLI region. As Board members, we look forward to working with you and hearing from you.

Contact us any time with questions and feedback, or to lend a hand.

With warm regards, Debra Russell WASLI President

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PO Box 65, 00401 Helsinki, FINLAND 7/211 Wellington Street,Collingwood, Victoria 3066 AUSTRALIA

WFD-WASLI International Sign Interpreter Accreditation System

The World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) and the World Association of the Sign Language Interpreters (WASLI) have recently established an International Sign (IS) Interpreter Accreditation system. A total of 20 individuals have been awarded the official status of ‘WFD-WASLI Accredited IS Interpreter’ after being assessed, through closed applications, by a panel of six of experts.

The Accreditation aims to set, maintain and promote standards in International Sign Interpretation as detailed in the ‘WFD-WASLI International Sign Interpreter Recognition Interim Policy and Guidelines’. It acts as a quality-assurance system for credentialing practitioners who meet those standards. The accreditation also strives to create and maintain a lifelong professional development system. In doing so, it officially recognises practitioners who have had extensive working experience with the WFD and WASLI in the international arena, and award them with the accreditation for a period of five years.

Much of the WFD and WASLI advocacy work is in the international forums such as meetings of the WFD, WASLI, Deaflympics, the United Nations conferences and Committee sessions related to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in New York and Geneva, International Congress on the Education of the Deaf, European Union of the Deaf seminars and meetings, and European Commission funded research project meetings and conferences.

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In all these platforms, International Sign is the primary mode of communication.

Since its inaugural appearance at the WFD Congress in 1987, demand for International Sign Interpreting has grown over time. It now consists of both hearing International Sign interpreters as well as Deaf International Sign Interpreters.

‘With the accreditation, coordination of acquiring International Sign Interpreters for deaf consumers in the international forums would be greatly streamlined. Deaf consumers in the international arena can now be assured of having International Sign Interpreters, who are qualified and competent. It will reduce the challenges within the procedure to contact the accredited International Sign Interpreters.’, said WFD President Colin Allen.

WASLI President Debra Russell added, “This process is an exceptional example of joint WFD-WASLI work that will result in positive recognition of the complicated and sophisticated skill sets required by International Sign interpreters. By identifying the competencies and criteria, thus process will also provide a ladder approach for those who aspire to work at the international events that are crucial for our organisations to function effectively.”

The second round of applications will be open to all in early 2016.

You can view the list of WFD-WASLI Accredited IS Interpreter at http://wfdeaf.org/our-work/wfd-wasli-accredited-interpreter.

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WASLI and SLLS signed a Joint Statement at the TISLR12 conference Following a proposal put forward at the WASLI AGM in Istanbul (July 2015) by prof. dr. Christian Rathmann, WASLI has signed a Joint Statement with the Sign Language Linguistics Society (SLLS).

The document was presented and signed at the TISLR (Theoretic Issues in Sign Language Research - http://www.tislr12.org) conference held in Melbourne the first week of January.

WASLI is very excited to have found a partner in the SLLS in order to promote and advance the profession of sign language interpreters through close collaboration and research.

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WASLI Educational Modules Committee

Expression of Interest

Background Information:

WASLI has completed its strategic plan for 2015-2019 and one of the goals is to create several short training videos. We often have requests on a range of topics, for example, what is a code of ethics and how to create one, what are the cognitive

strategies that good interpreters use, what is International Sign and where do I learn it, legal interpreting, medical interpreting, and so on. Our goal is to produce a series

of 8-10 short twenty-minute presentations, given by internationally recognized

trainers, both Deaf and hearing. These presentations would then be made available

to all of our members. The videos will use International Sign with English captions.

Committee Members Needed:

WASLI is searching for volunteers to join a committee that will plan and implement

several short training videos. If you have experience as a signed language interpreter trainer and are interested, we would like to hear from you before February 17, 2016.

Ideally, volunteers will:

• have 3-5 years experience training interpreters or interpreting students, preferably in more than one country

• understand how to plan effective educational presentations • have experience creating video teaching modules

• commit to attend monthly virtual meetings and to complete tasks within timelines required

If you are interested, please respond with a letter of application (in English and/or

International Sign), telling us how you meet the criteria and what you can offer to the th committee. Deadline February 17 2016.

Email: secretary.wasli@gmail.com

Thank you!

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WASLI Translation Coordinator and IS and Written Translators

Expression of Interest

Background Information:

WASLI has had a long-standing group of volunteers who have translated our documents into

International Sign and several other written languages, including Spanish, French Portuguese, and Arabic. We have processes that are outlined and a system that has worked well, thanks to the leadership of Rafael Trevino. With the resignation of Rafael, we are now seeking a new Translation

Coordinator, or Co-Coordinators, who can coordinate the work of the translators and manage the in order to bring our membership options for accessing information. We are also seeking workload volunteer translators, who can work into International Sign, or work into a written language.

Translation Coordinator and Translators Needed:

WASLI is searching for a volunteer coordinator or coordinators and translators. If you have experience as a signed language interpreter and are interested, we would like to hear from you before February

28, 2016.

Ideally, the Translation Coordinator(s) will: • • • •

be fluent in English understand how to plan for effective translation processes be familiar with International Sign

commit to coordinate monthly virtual meetings and to complete tasks within timelines required

Ideally, volunteer translators will:

• • • •

be fluent in English

understand how to translate English documents effectively into another language

International Sign translators will be Deaf native language users commit to attend monthly virtual meetings and to complete tasks within timelines required

If you are interested, please respond with a letter of application (in English and/or International Sign), telling us how you meet the criteria and what you can offer to the committee. Email: secretary.wasli@gmail.com

Thank you!

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Meet WASLI’s Social Media Team

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REPORTS FROM OVER THE WORLD

Here are some of the highlights from our regional representatives’ work:

African region, Natasha Parkins-Maliko

DeafNet: During October2015, the Africa representative and North Africa Sub regional representative attended a meeting of DeafNet where

WASLI Africa was presented with an award to engage on a partnership

Cameroon

The Association of Sign Language Interpreters, CASLI, was established in December 2015, a new SL

interpreter in central Africa. Eight out of the ten regions of Cameroon were covered with a total of 115sign language interpreters taking part in the meetings. Mr.Paul Ndoka and Mrs. Ruth Bakia led

this process under guidance of the Africa rep.

Zambia After a joint protest by the Zambian Deaf Youth and Women Association and Interpreter Association

to ZNBC, Zambian National Broadcast Corporation, a full time SL interpeter was employed to ensure

access to news programmes in Zambian Sign Language.

South Africa NASASLI is central at the current court case involving 5 Deaf learners involved in the murder of the

deputy principal at the Deaf school at the Eastern Cape Province. NASASLI was involved in the assessment of the current court interpreter and based on recommendations form NASASLI the

case is postponed until such time a professional register SL interpreter can be sourced to

interpret the case, this was done in reference to the new South African Language Practitioners Council Act which requires all language practitioners to be accredited to practice.

North-America region, Liz Mendoza

Represented WASLI at the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf conference

August 6-12,2015. Participated in a leadership panel with volunteer leaders

Balkans region, Desa Zizic

The FB group WASLI Balkans for all interpreters from the Balkans is up and running.

Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkey and Slovenia accepted to be

part of the Balkans region in WASLI.

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1.

Debra Russell with children in the Deaf classroom on the Seychelles.

2. Meeting in Dubai (round chit Arab interpreters)

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MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL (message in IS at http://wasli.org/blog/cat_news/wasli-membership-2016) It is hard to believe 2015 is almost one month behind is. This means our 2015 yearly membership calendar is also ended and the New Year brings us new memberships for 2016.

Since beginning January 2016, we have been accepting WASLI memberships for the 2016 calendar year. You can access our membership page at: http://wasli.org/membership and apply for individual, national or organization membership.

As mentioned in previous communications, WASLI has made its membership fees easier than ever to pay. Our PayPal sites have been updated and are ready to go.

As a WASLI member you contribute to WASLI’s efforts towards the establishment of sign language interpreter associations in countries where there are none. WASLI works to share resources with emerging countries and to establish regional networks of interpreters.

WASLI believes in working closely with and having transparent communication between interpreter and Deaf organizations, at the local, national, regional and international levels.

To learn more about the benefits of WASLI membership, see this article by WASLI’s

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President, Debra Russell: http://www.streetleverage.com/2012/03/internationalcollaboration-should-sign-language-interpreters-do-more/

Balkans Challenge

Do you have $15.00 that you can spare? If so we are challenging 10 of our WASLI members to donate the membership fees for a sign language interpreter from the Balkans! (or you can donate more than one membership!) We have identified this region as particularly needing some support. Will you be one of our supporters? If so, please contact our treasurer, Susan Emerson, at treasurer.wasli@gmail.com for details about making your donation to cover the membership fees of an interpreter from countries such as Moldovia, Albania, Serbia, Macedonia, or Kosovo.

NEWSLETTER EDITOR NOTE If you have news for the next WASLI newsletter, please send it before March 24th to newsletter.wasli@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you!

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