Deafness Sector Summit

The National Deafness Sector Summit was held on the 23rd and 24th April at the Grace Hotel, Darling Harbour, Sydney. I was invited to present on Deafblindness and attended the summit. I came away with mixed messages but in general I feel a positive outcome has been achieved.

The Hon. Shorten gave a keynote as did Deafness Forum ambassador John Howard. I couldn't help feeling that neither said much of particular interest to the Deafblind community. I did manage to meet with Bill Shorten briefly following his keynote and he expressed interest in attending our own conference (that never materialised).

I spent much of the first day at the workshop on Human Rights which I feel has offered and provided me with new ideas on how to present and promote our cause. Combined with my "Understand of Human Rights" course at University and involvement with the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities it offers a good foundation from which to work from.

On the second day I presented on Deafblindness making a number of what I felt were important points. Isolation, various incidences of Deafblindness, support needs and premature placement in aged homes were among the major issues to be raised. Although preparing a formal speech I ended up converting to an informal presentation style and invoked the audiences involvement. This has worked well and my speech was well received.

One particular point of interest was that of Aobriginal Australians and I will be endeavouring to make some connections in this area with the Aboriginal Disability Network. The other main thing I came away with was the newfound interest to work together to make solutions that suit not just the Deaf, but those with a Vision Impairment as well. I beleive this will become a very powerful alliance.