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Week in, week out, Linda's hands flutter expressively about events from the spectrum of human existence: funerals, trade union meetings, church services, antenatal classes, court cases, visits to doctor and lawyer.

A television documentary on the plight of a deaf man has spurred the Glen Eden-based New Zealand Association of the Deaf into action. It wants to see the man, wrongly imprisoned for two years, receive compensation for his ordeal.

A course to train professional interpreters for the deaf, now being run in Auckland, is the first of its kind in New Zealand.

A shortage of sign language interpreters means as many as 7700 deaf people are struggling to access services in their communities.

New Zealand Sign Language must be given official recognition as a language or it will die, Deaf Association President Jennifer Brain says.

Three years of lobbying for more support has finally borne fruit for the Taranaki deaf community. An office of the Deaf Association opened in New Plymouth this week, to provide needs assessment, information and some interpretation services for deaf people.

The New Zealand Deaf Sports Association demonstrated in Wellington at the weekend – at its 33rd annual games – how well it would use the Government funds it is hoping for so the association can hire its own interpreters.

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.

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.

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.

Struggles in her own schooling as she grew up made profoundly deaf Auckland woman Sarah Cameron want to be a teacher. Her ambition came true yesterday when she became the first deaf person to graduate with a mainstream secondary teacher's diploma.

Poor access to emergency services for the deaf could result in a death unless some action is taken soon, say advocates for the deaf. A petition has just been launched to ask Telecom to provide a relay service for that deaf people can call for help.

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.

'Wellington' and 'All Black' are just two of hundreds of familiar Kiwi terms – such as Milo, Weetbix, pakeha, Maori and marae – described in A Dictionary of New Zealand Sign Language to ve released next week.

A trip to the United States in 1990 gave Whangārei man Kim Robinson extra motivation to seek better and equal access for the deaf community in New Zealand. Now, that commitment to ensuring deaf people are heard and their needs met has seen him made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to the deaf community in the New Year's Honours List.