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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.

A job advertisement for a field officer for the deaf in Wellington, a resourceful person experienced in Social Work to assist deaf clients and carry out liaison and information work on matters relating to deafness.

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.

The Friends of the Deaf has paid £3000 for a three-quarter acre site at 166 Balmoral Road and in the new year it will begin to erect there the first permanent institute for deaf adults in New Zealand.

Deaf students have the right to equal access to tertiary education but who will pay for sign language interpreters?

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.

Cushla and Brian talk about their lives – being Deaf, their experiences at school, employment, and communication.

If a New Zealand-born person doesn’t speak good English, people are likely to assume such a person is unintelligent. Such an assumption is wrong when the person is born deaf.

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.

On a recent Saturday, I was lucky enough to meet members of the Auckland Deaf Society at a working bee they were holding to improve the grounds of the city's Deaf Welfare Centre. The centre, incidentially, is a very fine building – it has the biggest sports hall in Auckland with a floor area 110 by 60 feet.

Deaf job-seekers face seemingly unsurmountable obstacles and prejudice. But a new polytech course promoting positive action is smoothing the way.

Qualified interpreters are desperately needed to cope with the needs of deaf people in New Zealand.