Final Document of Conference
(and Press Release: authors listed at the bottom)
EUROPEAN CONFERENCE CALLS FOR MORE
COMMUNICATION SUPPORT FOR DISABLED PEOPLE
Italy hosted a major Conference on Communication Support and eAccessibility to celebrate the European Year of Disabled People and the Italian Presidency Semester of the EU, on 24 and 25 November 2003 at Barza/Ispra. The Conference was hosted by the VOICE Project of the European Commission Joint Research Centre in Ispra (Varese, Italy).
The Conference brought together representatives of the European Commission,
deaf and hard of hearing people and people with other disabilities,
RAI and BBC television broadcasters, medical and health professionals,
academic institutions and communication and information technology specialists
from all over Europe to discuss subtitling, sign language and other
communication supports for deaf, hard of hearing and other disabled
people.
The Conference also featured a range of demonstrations of the latest
communication support technology including the VOICE Project's speech
recognition subtitling system.
However, disability groups at the conference also highlighted the need
for action to support communication assistance for disabled people on
television, in the work place and in the education system.
The Conference organiser and co-ordinator of the VOICE Project, Giuliano
Pirelli, said "This very successful Conference has shown how new
technology has the potential to transform the lives of disabled people,
but also that the concerned national and international bodies, firms
and organisations must provide more action and support to harness this
potential."
A major example of this, subtitling, was highlighted at the conference.
More than one in seven people in Europe have a hearing loss and yet
subtitling levels vary greatly from country to country and some have
very low levels.
Furthermore, the technical standards to allow disabled people to have
easy, comprehensive access to TV, as proposed by the CENELEC TV for
All report, have not yet been implemented. The European Parliament
has recently called for action to increase access to television for
disabled people and many delegates from deaf and hard of hearing organisations
such as EFHOH, FEPEDA, EURO-CIU and RNID called for the European Commission
and Member States to take steps to do this during the European Year
of People with Disability this year.
The representatives of Associations of people with disabilities and
many experts insisted on the importance of ensuring more regular and
frequent subtitling of television broadcasts, conferences, school and
university lessons, cinemas and theatres.
They stressed the need of greater harmonisation in TV and DVD subtitling
and other assistive devices, as sign language and audio description
for blind people, and underlined the fundamental role of research in
reaching new objectives, or in providing new equipment in order to reach
the present objectives, with higher quality and in a more cost-effective
way.
This (draft of) Final Document (and Press Release) has been written by Mark Hoda, European Campaign Officer of the Royal National Institute of Deaf People, following the suggestions expressed at the Conference by:
Karg Siegfried, EFHOH, ProAudito
-Vice-President of EFHOH European Federation of Hard of Hearing,
-Pro Audito Schweiz BVVS, Winterthur, Switzerland
Coenen Guus, FOSS, FEPEDA,
-President Dutch Parents Organization from hard of hearing - and speech
disordered children,
-Member and Treasurer of The European Parents Organization for Deaf
and Hard of Hearing Children
Fehr Hendrik, EURO-CIU
-President of European Association of Cochlear Implant Users, Luxembourg,
Luxembourg
Rendu Magali, AFIDEO, DATHA
-Association Française pour l'Information et la Défense
des Sourds s'Exprimant Oralement,
-Développement d'Aide Technologique pour les personnes HAndicapées,
Paris, France
Hoda Marc, RNID
-European Campaign Officer of the Royal National Institute of Deaf People,
London, United Kingdom
Bonadonna Tinelli Emilia, ALFA
-President of Associazione Lombarda Famiglie Audiolesi, Milan, Italy
Parodi Elio, AFA
-President of Associazione Famiglie Audiolesi, Como and Lecco, Italy
Castelnuovo Virginio, ENS
-President of the Milan Section of Ente Nazionale Sordomuti, Milan,
Italy
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