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Trevor Fear, Auckland's newly-appointed deaf welfare officer talks about his experiences, the deaf community and their needs.

Imagine a packed stadium and not one of the 10,000 spectators’ voices heard by the athletes competing. That was the scenario painted by deaf table tennis and basketball player Kaz Witko who travelled with the New Zealand team to the international deaf sports convention in West Germany last year.

For most of the week, the deaf in New Zealand are shut off from the television communication the rest of us take for granted. But for half an hour each Sunday, they can join the rest of the world, through a special programme called News Review.

This week is Deaf Awareness Week. Nelson Mail reporter interviewed two women from Nelson's deaf community this week: Fliss Maera and Susan Thomas. The Nelson Club has between 25 to 30 members.

Daniel Greenwood of Auckland nimbly negotiates a wall on the Camp David confidence course. Nothing unusual in that, but take a closer look and a second person stands alongside Mr Greenwood using his hands to communicate.

One of the crowd favourites at the sixteenth World Games for the Deaf has been the blind and deaf wrestler from Canada, Pier Morten. Although being disadvantaged by not being able to see his opponents, Morten fights tenaciously and reacts speedily to holds applied on him.

To mark the centenary of the birth of Helen Keller on June 27, 1880, Pat Dugale has written about unusual experiences in her life.

The documentary 'The Remand of Ivan Curry (One, Sunday 9.35) was the story of how a man could spend two years in a New Zealand prison without trial. A deaf man arrested for a murder he did not commit who was kept in jail through lack of police investigation then turned back onto the streets with nothing, not even an apology.

Deaf people can communicate country to country with more ease than those who can speak. It is not because they have an international sign language – each country has its own – but because it is a visual language.

Daniel Beech was in New Plymouth over the weekend to demonstrate a new machine which enables deaf people to use a telephone.

– and Val Jillings and her deaf family prove it! This is Deaf Awareness Week – so the Quota Club of Auckland will hold week-long displays, video films and discussions in the city’s Downtown Walkway and Centrecourt.

Profoundly deaf people, particularly those deaf from birth of an early age, have needs which are not being met by the existing psychiatric services and institutions, says Pat Dugdale, Field Officer for the New Zealand Association of the Deaf.

Nearly quarter of a million dollars in sponsorship has been raised for the NZSL dictionary, a joint effort by the University and the New Zealand Association of the Deaf.

A fight has begun against a justice system which some deaf people regard as denying them basic human rights.

Curry, who was deaf after suffering meningitis as an infant, spent two years in jail before being brought to trial on a murder charge a jury took just two hours to throw out.