i.Mephisto

The Rebuttal’s post Have Boots Will Travel is thought provoking. I don’t want to comment on Deaf Australia winning the tender to teach Auslan in schools in Queensland, Australia which you can read all about it, here.

What peaked my interest, is the idea that Deaf people have to travel in order to fulfil their potential.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s good to travel. It’s good to see other people, other coutnires and experience other cultures. Indeed, it is good to work in places other than one’s own immediate geography. After all, it is the raison d’être of musicians, artists, actors, et al, and Chief Excutive Officers whose own raison d’être  is to extract as much money for a little of their labour as possible, irrespective of the results of their efforts.

My question is, why should Deaf have to travel in order to fulfil their potential? Why should Deaf people have to suffer the ignomy of a welfare and charity support network that does nothing more than run a  few Deafness Awareness Training sessions, provide some interpreter support and communication access, and fundraising events under the guise of family fun days, but do nothing to teach Deaf how to fish?

That for me is the crux of the problem. We’re not taught how to fish.

I’m all for travelling and working in other places to further ones career, but when that effort contributes nothing to the overall health of the local community, in terms of creating opportunities for our local talent, so that more Deaf people can achieve their potential rather than a  select few, then you have to ask yourself, what is wrong with this picture.

In the ten years since I’ve not been involved in the Australian Deaf Community [group and committees], my sources have confirmed, that not much has changed. That the welfare and charity model seems to be more entrenched, than ten years ago, when independence and autonomy were the buzz words.

I don’t want to demean Deaf Australia’s achievement in winning the tender to teach Auslan, but I will be looking at the flow on effects of a new breed of Deaf professionals who will be able to fulfil thewir own potenital without having to travel.

I hardly call working for a Deaf organisation, in Australia or overseas, a fulfilment of potential [unless, of course, your objectives meld with theirs, or it does something for your desire to parade upon the catwalk of paternalism. Which always look better if you can say you slinked the catwalks in faraway places].

This is not to denigrate the work, and often necessary and important work, of our Deaf organisations, and they cna only do so much, but their is that lingering element of doubt.

Perhaps the more pertinent question is, why do we have to rely on the welfare and charity model, and the Hearing world, for opportunities. Why aren’t we creating our own?

It’s because we haven’t or aren’t being taught to fish.

Communication, Culture, Wry Observations