2006-09-06
In Colombia we continue working hard for the rights of the deaf and deafblind population, their active participation in government meetings, the fulfill the law that recognize deafblindness as a unique disability (from august 2005), etc. always together Fenascol, Surcoe and Sense International (Latin America).
Right now we have achieved that the government pays the interpreters and guide interpreters for meetings at the disable council meetings, health services (hospitals), juridical appointments and other government services.
There are deaf and deafblind people at universities and schools for hearing people (integrated and the interpreters are paid by the educational ministry).
In Colombia we have the 31 interpreters and guide interpreters that were trained and certificated in 1997 and some other who took courses with us.
We have written a project proposal, in which we are looking to train more interpreters and guide interpreters in Colombia (five or six cities) with the educational ministry, the interpreters’ organization in Canada (through de Margarita), Fenascol and Sense International (Latin America) in 2007. For that we are planning to update the course developed in 1997 and develop it through the organizations of the deaf and Surcoe, supported by the network on deafblindness that we created in Colombia, lead by Sense International (Latin America).
Henry Mejia and Alejandra Leon from Fenascol and Ximena Serpa from Sense International (Latin America).