The young woman talks through signing interpreter Zubeyda Melikiyan, to say that she used to be envious of those who could talk. Now, she has found her own voice. "Of course, mastering the language of gestures was a difficult task, but I scaled the barrier. I felt I was growing step by step and my soul filled with endless warmth,"Â Armine says.
Following Armine's example other young adults, all members of Will and Might, speak similar feelings. Through the NGO, started in 1996, some 400 hearing impaired have found self-confidence against a society in which "the handicapped"Â are widely misunderstood.
The NGO and the French-Armenian Development Foundation implemented a project aimed at the integration of the hearing impaired into mainstream society, says Mary Pahutyan, chairwoman.
"We aimed at evaluating the accessibility of the community services for people with hearing problems. The project was implemented in the Shengavit community in Yerevan, but it is important to deaf people all across the republic because they face the same problems."Â
In order to reach the goal of the project a survey is carried out. As deaf people would be unable to do it alone, the organizers chose to train speaking interpreters, to assist with the survey, selecting family members of hearing impaired. Lusine Badalyan is an exception. She has no deaf family members, but chose to specialize in sign language. "I will never forget their faces as they saw me speaking their own language when none of my family members is deaf. I can understand their world,"Â she says.
The eight-month long project carries out some 50 interviews with the persons with hearing problems. Another 50 interviews are held among the families familiar with their problems, with 50 additional interviews among people providing various types of public services. Vahe Sahakyan, a lecturer at the School of Sociology at Yerevan State University has been heading the training of the interviewers.
"We defined the research questions of the survey and developed the questionnaire with the persons who had ear problems. We went on with organizing role games to see the advantages and the shortcomings of the questionnaire,"Â tells Sahakyan. "The experimental interviews were shot on video. It helped both the interviewers and the people with ear problems to easily point on their own mistakes."Â The survey has shown the people with ear problems mainly face difficulties in the local administration bodies, social services, policlinics, hospitals and other public places.
"I am deaf, but I wanted to take part in the project in order to learn the needs that other deaf people have. The interviewing was an extremely tough matter to me, but it was also very important, because it helped me gain knowledge in this secluded world of ours,"Â says Anna Papoyan, 27. "I interviewed a 70-year-old deaf person and he told me his troubles."Â
The project, financed by World Bank with the mediation of the Open Society Institute cost $9,400. Melikyan is the language trainer. She says these interpreters are mainly people with ordinary capabilities but with deaf parents and have a minimum knowledge of the subject. But they need this kind of trainings, Melikyan says, because their knowledge is not sufficient to be interpreters. "One needs to obtain professional education to become an interpreter. But there is no such opportunity in Armenia today. This project both trained and informed the five interpreters on the problems of ethics,"Â says Melikyan. "The children who come from families with deaf members differ from the ordinary people, because appropriate centers in both of their cerebral hemispheres are developed. We get the information on the one side, and digest it and give it out on the other."Â
The Union of the Deaf People of Armenia joined the Finland-based International Center of the Deaf in 1995. The Armenian specialists have been visiting Finland for training since 1999. Zubeyda mentions the seminars have helped her become a true specialist. There are 3,500 deaf people living in Armenia today. The union of the deaf has undertaken the problem of providing interpreters on its own. Interpreters are paid 20,000 drams ($54) per month. At any place, any time, whether a hospital, court or other emergency or common need, interpreters are on call to connect the non-hearing and the hearing.
"The interpreters leave their troubles and their families aside and carry the burden of the deaf people on their own shoulders by becoming their guards, their social workers and their defenders,"Â says Melikyan. "But a failure to solve a problem in the official instances is blamed on the interpreter. And the field will not be regulated unless Armenia has a law on sign languages."Â
Ashot Avetisyan, principal of School No. 15 for children with hearing problems says there is a necessity to think over the status of the interpreters and suggests submitting a package to the government.
"After all there should be an organization to be competent for granting interpreters a certificate to regulate the responsibilities and the rights of the interpreters,"Â says Avetisyan.
Sign language was accepted as an official language by UNESCO in 1984 and the United Nations in 1993. Armenia, though, is not among the countries who have adopted the language. Before the problem is solved on the state level, the NGOs try to make the state's job easier.
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Posted December 4th, 2006 by ruzik_tuzik
