New BSL app for iPhone

Posted on by Tony Barlow
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This landed in my inbox this morning.

British Sign Language Trainer

Screenshot

Screenshot

The marketing blurb goes like this:

Did you ever want to learn sign language?

Here is your chance to learn how to spell words in sign language. All 26 signs corresponding to the characters of the alphabet are displayed on the screen as buttons.

The buttons are in alphabetical order, making it easy to learn each sign. You’ll be able to spell anything that you like in a short amount of time.

If you are unsure if you are spelling the correct sign, just press the button to display the corresponding character.

Once you are proficient with the alphabet and you would like to continue training, give your iPhone to a friend, spell a word or sentence in sign language and have them translate what you just spelled.

Have fun mastering the british sign language alphabet

If you have used it or going to use it, it would be great if you could leave a feedback. I am not an iPhone user. I am going for N97 for my next phone but felt this new product is newsworthy although the title of the app is misleading. You don’t actually learn BSL as the app only contains the fingerspelt alphabet. Learning the alphabet doesn’t means you will acquire a language however this will be useful for novice signers enrolled on Level 1 BSL course.

TAG calls for Government action after independent Ofcom report on deaf telecoms

Posted on by Tony Barlow
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TAG is calling for Government action to improve deaf telecoms services following a new report from Ofcom that highlights the benefits that modernised telephone relay services could have on the employment and everyday lives of deaf people. The independent report, Voice telephony services for deaf people, was commissioned by Ofcom as part of its work to tackle the most critical issues that disabled people face with communications services.

The report says that modernised relay services – in use in several other countries, but available to only a very few people in the UK – could enable deaf people to be significantly more productive at work, help reduce their feelings of isolation and loneliness at home and make everyday telephone interactions less stressful and much faster.

Ruth Myers, chairman of TAG said “We are very pleased that this independent report for Ofcom has highlighted the all-round benefits of modernised relay services to deaf people and that they may even be more cost-effective than the existing basic text relay service. We now want the government to act promptly to ensure that modernised services can be available to deaf people at fair prices.
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“The report echoes what TAG has been saying for a very long time: that the existing basic text relay service is very frustrating for its deaf users principally because it is too slow and does not allow natural fluid conversations. As the report indicates, the newer captioned and video relay services enable much faster, less stressful and far more effective means for deaf people to contact hearing people by voice telephone.” The continuing importance of voice telephone calls for the general population despite the growth in other forms of text communication like SMS texting, email and instant messaging is also highlighted by the report. Although voice calls by the hearing population have decreased a little in recent years, they have now stabilised at an average 90 minutes per week. Deaf people are therefore largely missing out on a vital mode of communication, an issue that could be addressed through the widespread availability of modernised relay services.

TAG is gaining support for its campaign from MPs of all the main political parties, many of whom are raising the issue in Parliament.

The Ofcom report on deaf telecoms is available at http://tiny.cc/fntjS TAG is a consortium made up of the British Deaf Association, Deafness Support Network, deafPLUS, Hearing Concern Link, National Association of Deafened People, National Deaf Children’s Society, Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), and Sense.

Related links:

TAG
News’ source

Ofcom report 2009 – for Deaf people – in plain English

Posted on by Tony Barlow
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Taken from this page when alerted by this blog.

Voice calls for deaf people

Foreword

Everyone depends on communications, and most of us take for granted that we can pick up the phone, turn on the TV or surf the net. However, these everyday services can pose real difficulties for some disabled people.

At Ofcom, it’s part of our job to make sure that everyone has an equal chance to enjoy the benefits that modern communications can bring. That’s why we announced in our Access and Inclusion consultation (March 2009) that we would tackle the biggest problems faced by disabled people.

To begin with, we’re looking at the text relay service. We know this service is very important to people with hearing difficulties as it helps them to use the phone. However, it relies on technology that is 30 years old and, of course, many innovations have arrived since then including email, texts (SMS) and instant messaging.

To help us understand the issues, we asked the independent consultancy Plum to find out what people with hearing impairments actually need from communications. We also wanted to know whether those needs are being met, and whether new relay services can provide a solution.

Plum’s report has told us a great deal, and we’re pleased to present a summary of it here. We’re also grateful to the many people and organisations who helped with this important piece of work.

We are firmly committed to making sure that people with disabilities can get more from communications. At the same time, this is not just a matter for Ofcom: a wide range of issues needs to be discussed with government, the communications industry and disability groups.

We will have more to say on this important work later this year.

Ofcom July 2009

Voice calls for deaf people

A summary of the independent report by Plum Consulting

What the study covered

We all need phone services, and it’s a need that is growing all the time. We need them to find work and earn a living; to keep in touch with our family and friends; to find information and shop for things we need; and simply to take part in life.

But if you have serious hearing problems, the simple act of making a phone call isn’t simple at all. So in this study we looked at what deaf people need from phone services. We looked at whether those needs are being met, and asked if there are other services that could meet them better.

Services for deaf people: the situation now

There are around 850,000 severely and profoundly deaf people in the UK. For them, making a normal phone call is either difficult or impossible. Of course, there are other ways of communicating and many deaf people are heavy users of email, texting and instant messaging. But although this puts them on equal terms with hearing-people, none of these options is quite the same as a phone call.

After all, a call is about natural and flowing conversation with all the emotions and subtleties of the human voice. That isn’t the job of an email or text, and the time lag between sending and receiving makes this kind of ‘conversation’ painfully slow.

However, there is a service created especially for deaf people. It’s a basic text relay service which is funded by BT and operated by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID). It’s available throughout the UK, 24/7, for the price of a normal phone call.

Although deaf people told us they value the text relay service, it only has 11,000 regular users and the figure is decreasing. People in our discussion group told us that the service:

  • is slow, providing a typical conversation speed of just 30 words per minute. This means they can’t get much work done, and even simple social calls are a frustrating experience;
  • doesn’t allow natural, fluid conversation;
  • often suffers interruptions as relay operators change shifts or take emergency calls;
  • doesn’t work well for inbound calls. Hearing-callers often don’t know they need to dial a prefix to trigger connection to the relay centre;
  • won’t work with the automatic systems used in many call centres;
  • suffers from high hang-up rates by hearing-people who receive basic text relay calls; and
  • can suffer from mistakes when the conversation includes professional jargon or detailed information. This can be a real problem in many jobs, and when ordinary customers are dealing with businesses.

Continue reading →

House of Lords debate warns over Apprenticeship Bill

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Disabled young people may be excluded from apprenticeships because of entry requirements specified in current legislation, peers warned yesterday.

In a House of Lords debate on the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, peers questioned whether provisions on access to apprenticeships were compatible with disability discrimination legislation.

The legislation specifies that applicants must have “level 1″ qualifications, including in English and Maths. These represent basic skills and are equivalent to GCSEs at grades D or below.
[snip]
Labour peer Baroness Wilkins raised similar concerns about deaf young people, adding: “A blanket requirement for a GCSE in English may disadvantage a deaf candidate whose first language is British Sign Language.”

Both Rix and Wilkins questioned whether the measure was compatible with the duty on public bodies, under the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, to promote disability equality.

In response, junior children’s minister Baroness Morgan said the government was “very committed to ensuring apprenticeships are accessible to all young people and adults”, but promised to look again at the requirements, saying it was “an important area for us to debate further”.

Young people would be able to pursue an apprenticeship without meeting the qualificaiton criteria but would not have an entitlement to one, she said.

I am glad someone highlighted this because a fair few Deaf people do leave school with no English skill at that level. They need second chance when they do leave school and, by adding this GCSE English entry requirement, it will further hinder the development of young deaf people who couldn’t access decent education at school.

Personally, I went through Youth Training Scheme (YTS) and I felt it gave me a great springboard to enhance my work opportunities later on in my 20s. I think the Government is totally missing the point with what the apprenticeship should be all about. It should be about an opportunity to learn vocational skills that are not readily available in schools. It will create a paradox in the education system in ensuring our next generation to acquire skills.

I don’t understand this obsession for needing to have layer after layer of qualifications to do simple job. For example, there is an NVQ course in becoming a cleaner. The mind boggles and this is bureacracy gone mad.

For that reason, I am looking forward to attend Worklessness Innovation seminar next Thurday.

Life-saving skills – in BSL

Posted on by Tony Barlow
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This is great. Vital life-saving skills made accessible in British Sign Language. They have been created by British Red Cross and it is presented by Fifi Garfield. Kudos to British Red Cross for taking this initiative at their own expense and despite the fact that they are volunteer-led organistation. It is nice to see someone putting lives above the money. Public inter-governmental services should hang their heads in shame.

See more here.

Twitter ye not…not

Posted on by Tony Barlow
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Podcast From KnowHowNonProfit

Ian Bruce

Brian Lamb is the executive director of advocacy and policy at the RNID and the author of NCVO’s Good Campaigns Guide, which maps out effective tools to increase the quality and the evaluation of campaigning. Within RNID, Brian has had overall responsibility for driving forward the work on awareness of the dangers of loud noise, including the award winning ‘Don’t Lose the Music’ campaign aimed at younger people and those working in the entertainment and music industry. Here he explains what he think makes an effective campaign.

Brian Lamb, RNID

I think it’s something that captures the imagination, I think it’s something that’s got flair and passion. I think passion’s vastly underestimated still, in campaigning. You’ve got to have the technique but you’ve actually got to pull people to your issue – because there’s hundreds of issues out there and yours has got to stand out. And yours has got to motivate decision makers to make them feel that this is the one that they’ve got to address.

I think what you have to remember, whether you’re a big or a small campaign, the kind of steps you ought to be taking is focusing ruthlessly on what is the key thing you need to achieve and who can really make that difference for you. And look to how you can use the language of the people that you’re campaigning against, to put it into their terms, so they can understand what you’re looking for. And I think if you do that, you will always present a very effective case to those you’re lobbying against.

I think campaigning is changing massively at the moment, because the more people become disillusioned with traditional parties and traditional ways of influencing, the more and more they’re going to charities and to campaigning organisations to get the democratic voice they feel they’re not getting through the system. We’ve seen an explosion in the last ten years of community national base campaigns taking on large issues and creating the political weather, where political parties are simply now just responding to what’s going on in civil society.

I think what’s interesting is everybody keeps talking about the internet and Twitter and social networking, and that’s very important. But it’s amazing how much people are going back to traditional grass-roots methods of giving people a sense of community, a place to go and people to relate to. You look at a lot of the successful campaigns that are getting media attention – it’s actually about bringing people together in a way that, again, political parties are often not. It’s then knowing how to use the media and to do that with flair and do things differently that actually attracts attention. And again I think it’s the novelty that people can bring, as well as the passion, that often makes the difference and makes particular campaigns stand out.

Prompted Questions for Brian Lamb

How did you become a campaigner? What got you started?

What are the key components of a good campaign?

Is there ever a “one-size-fits-all” approach?

What is your view of Hacan’s campaigning?

Where do you think people make mistakes?

Can you give me some examples of some good campaigns?

Where do you see our campaigners of the future?

How do you see the future of campaigns? (online/mobile phones/etc..)

Do you think the internet will become an effective campaigning platform? Or is there too much junk cluttering the internet distracting the audience away from the important stuff?

What grabbed my attention is this bit:

I think campaigning is changing massively at the moment, because the more people become disillusioned with traditional parties and traditional ways of influencing, the more and more they’re going to charities and to campaigning organisations to get the democratic voice they feel they’re not getting through the system.

Democratic voice? Although I have not made representations to RNID, I have seen plenty of complaints online and through 1st hand, within the deaf rank and file community, that they are not getting that democratic voice. Are they going to change their position at any time soon? Or do we need to do it ourselves?

We’ve seen an explosion in the last ten years of community national base campaigns taking on large issues and creating the political weather, where political parties are simply now just responding to what’s going on in civil society.

Are we missing a trick here? Should there be more groups/organisations to work alongside BDA? For example, a campaign for accessible health programs rolled out on national scale i.e. stop smoking group or drug/alcohol group. I would rather engage with a deaf-led self-help group than attend a mainstream group with an interpreter as I do not want my deafness to be centre of attention when I do attend. BSL announcement about Swine flu is all great but what is happening on the local levels? I only found out because I am able to use the internet effectively and got my feelers out. Are the Whitehall’s civil servant mandarins ensuring the information are reaching the right audience?

I think what’s interesting is everybody keeps talking about the internet and Twitter and social networking, and that’s very important.

Is Twitter really the future? While it is fun and digestible, I am still unconvinced – despite the hype.


Cancelling it all out

Posted on by Tony Barlow
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Terp all sold outA thought struck me last night. Ow!

Recently, there was a public event in which I have been badgering the organisers for some time to provide an BSL (British Sign Language) interpreter. It was a job recruitment/open day for a new hotel opening and I have been telling my clients to go and attend.

Later, it transpired that the interpreter never turned up and I had disgruntled clients complaining about that fact. So, I tried to get to the bottom of it and discovered that the interpreter cancelled the booking at the last minute.Yes, you read that right – cancelled. But the event was not cancelled to 500 hearing people who had no problem in vying for 25 jobs that need to be filled.

I do not know the full reasons behind the cancellation but there was deaf people who travelled a long way to be there and it was a complete waste of time cos no interpreter. I feel if the interpreter cancel the booking then it should be their obligation to find a replacement – no question nor quibble. If they have to use a very expensive emergency interpreter, yes I would insist. It is an opportunity not to be missed.

I would insist because it is also a well-known fact that interpreters will charge YOU cancellation fee if you cancel the booking or change the booking in any way. I do know that some interpreters would usually have a backup job or have no trouble filling up the booking – to double their money.

What happened if the interpreter who cancel the booking or fail to turn up?

How about I start charging BSL interpreters a cancellation fee because of my time have been spent on informing people about availability of interpreter, printing out leaflets, posting it and pestering job centre with phone call after phone call to provide an interpreter? Oh yes, and not forgetting the travel costs and food for the deaf people who turned up on the day. I wish I could put a price on frustration and despair bubbled up on the day and add that to the bill.

It is not a healthy consumer market as we are at the mercy of these service providers. We, the consumers, should be able to have more power to redress these things and whenever we book, it stay booked.

Can you hear the birds singing?

Posted on by Tony Barlow
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Inspired by recent GOD post:

Excerpt from: RNId Imagine a world without sound

I used to work in a school with hard of hearing children. We had one girl who came from a family of five. Both her parents were profoundly deaf, as she was. She had a younger brother who was severely deaf and an older sister who was the only hearing member of the family.

One summer morning, she came into the unit and said in a disbelieving voice “My sister says that she hears the birds singing in the morning and it wakes her up. Do you hear the birds singing?” It totally wrung my heart and I vowed never to complain about being woken by them ever again…

The Deaf perspective:

I used to work in a school with hearing children. We had one girl who came from a family of five. Both her parents were hearing, as she was. She had a younger brother who was severely hearing and an older sister who was the only deaf member of the family.

One summer morning, she came into the unit and said in a disbelieving signs “My sister says that she use an under-the-pillow vibrator and it wakes her up. Do you ever get vibrated in the morning?” It totally wrung my heart and I vowed never to complain about being woken by my Silent Alert ever again…

Extremism is the norm

Posted on by Tony Barlow
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I would like to recount my experience during my visit to Damacus, Syria, when I attended my good friend’s brother wedding.

Having faced the death-defying car rides and me mistaking the suspect Arab’s bidet plumbing for a muezzin’s call for prayer at 2am, the capital still captivated me. It was the most violent jerk from one culture (British) to another that I ever had to go through. Despite being turned away from the local public bath – simply for being of white skin and of Western World’s origin – the Syrians are, in my view, the most hospitable and amicable people you can come across. The culture. I could go on about it if only I could harness into a titbit of Tony Nicholas’ eloquence, to express the sum of my visit to Syria and how…..and by God, how it does compares to the British culture.

The main highlights of my visit was the wedding night – to put it all in the nutshell, it was sword fight, pricking the groom’s bum with needles as a rite of passage, bribing the police to keep the main highway of Damacus free so we can hang out of cars and scream our heads off, turning up at the Hilton among its sheer opulence, dining in style in a banquet room with so much gold that it dripped, glistening thrones were laid on for the married couple, partying among seas of amazingly beautiful Arab women that would make Hugh Heffner forget himself. There was me, in my striped cricket blazer, pink shirt, chinos and a plaster cast arm – I was a local curiosity for the night. It was a night that I will treasure for a long time.

Before the wedding night, we often go to the Hilton swimming pool and I would get waved through due to wearing a tight fitting forest green ribbed t-shirt that I was wearing at the time. I passed myself off as an UN observer, on a break from watching the Lebanon-Israel border. I befriended a blonde-dyed Arabic woman with a most devastating bikini you can have and I am surprised you can get them in this part of the world. Such sheltered life that I lead! I am talking Jessica Rabbit here. Once, she asked me how am I Deaf? Before I could answer, “Is it because of Allah?” Boy, I had to humour her. “Yes, it is because of Allah!”. She gave me a look of pity and, on this occasion, I didn’t mind cos she gave me a hug “to spur me on”. I didn’t complain.

Anyway, the nub of this post centred around a family dinner time which was back of my friend’ mum house. My friend got 4 brothers and the youngest is deaf too – the 2nd, 3rd and 4th are not. Because of the region is rife with conflict and one of the brothers was moaning about having to be conscripted into the Syrian Army very soon, Israel cropped up in the conversation. Although they all spoke very good English but they would converse mostly in Arabic, pausing now and then only to explain in English for mine and my friend’s benefit, who have spent his formative years in English Deaf school education system. I asked what if Israel invaded Syria and surprisingly 2 of the brothers said they would put on bomb jackets and head straight for the front line to die for the their country and brothers, taking as many Israeli soldiers as possible. What strikes me the most, is how calm and matter of fact they were when they made that statement. I didn’t pursue the conversation any more out of fear of questioning their motive over family dinner and disrespecting them. The very statement itself left me quite startled and disturbed because we had been playing footie and smoking hookah under the star-light sky the night before and I felt really at home with them – until this came up. After about an hour, it didn’t bothered me anymore because they are still people although they are living in a completely different circumstances than mine and they live by different values. Also, they are not radicalised. Just normal Syrian people.

I don’t know if I can draw parallels with this experience to what the Deaf Culture are facing, but I feel this touch on the intolerance that have been expressed towards the Deaf Community and the Deaf Culture because, for some, it goes against the grain of the life that is normal to them and Deaf Culture is extreme. Back in Damacus, I felt it was wrong of me to judge the Syrians because I haven’t lived their lives. You either leave these people alone or persevere to embrace their culture. Something are just meant to be and it is really down to the tolerance of people to embrace diversity and improve, rather than impose their values onto other who holds different values altogether and hold us all back.

“Though all society is founded on intolerance, all improvement is founded on tolerance”
George Bernard Shaw