DeafROC

Hi everyone,

We are 1 week away from the next Town Hall meeting on April 24th at 7 pm. I hope we have alot of people there to become change agents. Attached is a flyer that I would like you to pass out.

If you are wondering why should you go?

One thing, I can tell you is that many of us are being taken advantage of because all of us are not working together as a strong deaf, hard of hearing or deaf-blind. Seriously, yes… even in our large per capita deaf community we need to work together. It sad, if something goes bad we all are ready to fight. But, if nothing bad we go to sleep. One thing we forgot, there are people sneaking around all the times and taking advantage of us. If we work together we can stop many of these small things from becoming big!

Let me give one an example and as time gets closer I will add few more. If you want to know more, please come to town hall meeting to discuss these issues. Because, many of the answers depend on what all of us together need.

Today I will discuss interpreters. Do you think we have enough qualified interpreters in our deaf community? I was told in one of my event, we should have an interpreter for hearing interpreters because many interpreters will not be able to understand me. Can you believe that? I can not accept this… we should not need to provide an interpreter for interpreters. It means that something is wrong.

Another example is that there are doctors, lawyers and other people in the community who are taking advantage of the fact we are not educated. They will call ADA specialists and telling us that they called the ADA and they were told that an interpreter does not need to be provided because we can write back and forth.

They maybe forgot or maybe do not want us to know, if we are not satisfied with the communication or have struggles with understanding the information we have rights to take them to court for failing to provide us effective communication.

Now, there are more issues, about interpreters but I would rather put them on hold. It is all of us together who needs to confront these issues together. Lets get together and become change agents to improve the quality and services of interpreters in our community!

Please help spread the words to your friends who might have problem or are aware of this. Save the date to join us at Rochester Recreation Club for the Deaf (RRCD) and their REAP program on April 24th from 7 pm to 9 pm.

See you there!!

Thank you,

Dean DeRusso
Deaf Systems Advocate
Regional Center for Independent Living
Advocacy and Independent Living Services for Individuals
497 State Street
Rochester, NY 14608

Sorenson VP: 585 546-7598
VP: 74.39.189.195
Voice Callers 1: (877) 467-4877 ext 07598
Voice Callers 2: 866-327-8877 ext 585.546.7598
TTY: (585) 697-1604
Fax: 585.546.7577
E-Mail: dderusso@rcil.org