Pat Dugdale

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.

The new Wellington field office is playing its part in other developments of interest to deaf people, such as the spread of total communication and the growing importance of the Wellington Deaf Society.

Wellington has a new worker among the deaf. Pat Dugdale, profoundly deaf, has been made field officer by the New Zealand Association of the Deaf. Her job is to provide personal social service help and to liaise with organisations, welfare agencies, commercial institutions and lawyers on behalf of the deaf.

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.

Local bodies in the Wellington region are still inconsistent about the reductions they offer in dog registration fees for deaf owners, says 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.

The new field officer for the deaf, Pat says “…deaf people are not morons.”

A field officer for the deaf, Mr David Chilwell, a former president of the Christchurch Deaf Club, has been appointed in Christchurch as a result of a grant from the Lottery Funds Board.

One of the New Zealand Association for the Deaf’s priorities is to get interpreters for the profoundly deaf. This was the message in a speech from Mrs Pat Dugdale.

In the past 18 months, the NZAD has opened field offices in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington, and hopes soon to establish two more in Nelson and Dunedin.

Deaf people have had unfair trials through lack of interpreters telling them what is happening in courts.

It takes only a few minutes in the company of Pat Dugdale to realise that she has a mischievous sense of fun. It’s almost as if she enjoys shocking people and then watching their reaction.