ABSTRACT
This is a quote from a Portuguese deaf man in Lisbon. He was telling us his opinion as part of an EEC project about deaf people in Europe. The project aimed to find out deaf people’s opinions on social policy in Europe and to improve the situation by finding out what deaf people actually want themselves. The deaf people we interviewed were people whose preferred means of communication was sign language. It was an important project because of the way it was carried out as well as the content. It was the first to approach deaf people themselves in the sign language of their own country on an international level. The interviews were carried out in sign language by a deaf interviewer so it was direct deaf-to-deaf person interviewing. Previously work has been carried out by hearing people interviewing deaf people. There were communication problems for the deaf people with expressing their feelings and working through interpreters. There has been earlier work done by Jim Kyle and Gloria Pullen (1984) on young deaf people in employment using deaf researchers. The project was funded by the European Economic Community’s Bureau for Action for Disabled People. The money was channelled through the European Regional Secretariat of the World Federation of the Deaf, who initiated the work. It was administered through the Universities of Durham and Bristol. There were two researchers-Lesley Jones who is hearing and Gloria Pullen who is deaf. The method used is very innovative. People were contacted firstly through the deaf associations, then by sending a video of Gloria Pullen signing. It is important to use video and graphics rather than written material. One hundred deaf people were interviewed individually in five contrasting membership states in Spain, the Federal Republic of West Germany, Denmark, Portugal and Greece. The populations of these countries are as shown in Table 1.
