In a huge blow to hopes of improving telecommunications access for Deaf sign language users, it has been announced that the VRS Today! campaign, which aimed to introduce universal video relay services in the UK, has today been suspended.
Despite the support of a range of deaf organisations, and “overwhelming support from the British Deaf community,” the statement on the website says that the campaign’s financial resources “have been exhausted” and “progress has been too slow.”
Here’s the statement below:
For the last two years, Sorenson Communications has funded the VRS Today! campaign for equal access to telecommunications for British Sign Language (BSL) users. During that time, the campaign has received overwhelming support from the British Deaf community, and its leading organisations. Most notably the campaign has benefited from collaboration with the UK Council on Deafness, TAG, National Deaf Childrens’ Society, and the British Deaf Association.
The campaign has made great progress, and has succeeded in raising awareness and putting equal access firmly on the Government’s agenda. However, progress has been too slow, therefore the campaign’s financial resources have been exhausted, and the VRS Today! campaign has ceased to operate.
We are hugely disappointed that the campaign’s ultimate objective of a universal Video Relay Service has not been achieved, however we are proud of the progress made. We are confident that the Deaf community will continue to fight tenaciously for the campaign’s objectives, and we hope that one day equal access will be delivered in the UK.
This website will close down on 9th August. For further information on the ongoing efforts of the Deaf community, please visit UKCoD’s website.
For more information, go to: http://www.vrstoday.com/2012/07/18/vrs-today-campaign-suspended/
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Linda Richards
July 19, 2012
I’m very sorry to hear Sorenson Communications which has funded the VRS Today! campaign for equal access to telecommunications for British Sign Language (BSL) has suspended its campaign in the UK. There is no doubt their presence in the UK galvanised others from their lethargy.
In the early 1980s, I was contacted by a BT engineer who wanted to trial video conferencing as a means of communication for Deaf people [the technology existed then!] I arranged what was an historic link-up between Deaf and hard of hearing people in London and Bristol. The BT engieer admitted the technology would be ready about ten years down the line – yet, to all of us, we could see it worked as we laughed and signed through the call and had to be thrown out of the building afterwards.
It was to be another decade, the mid-1990s, before the next step happened. This was at RNID Scotland, under Lilian Lawson, [now Director of SCoD] who had the foresight to see this as the way forward and secure funding from the then Scottish Government for trials in VRS, VRI and VI with particular attention for those Deaf people in the Highlands, Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland. [Lilian first saw something akin to this being used by comic strip character ‘Flash Gordon’ when younger and at residential school and thought it would be great for Deaf people]. Lilian and I liaised with our counterparts in the USA around conditions, duration of calls and those which were not suitable [worringly, the very calls being plugged now by others as suitbale but so clearly not for both user and interpreter alike].
Then RNID HQ ‘changed hands’ and we lost the chance to develop further what had already been a successful eighteen month project.
The BDA under Doug Alker in mid-2000s could see how much such technology would help the Deaf community communicate with each other [empowerment] and to generate business/income for the BDA. What happened next is best left for another time. Now we have a number of independent or joint ventures [Deaf Connections of Glasgow and their ‘SOS’ initative is good] through to those who will see this as a ‘money earner’. However. others have left the ‘franchise’ as the volume of VRS/VI calls have been so low. The quote that VRS calls are cheaper doesn’t ring true either as one company charges what has been calculated as £90 an hour…… The errors that I have been told about are worthy of a sketch by ‘The Deaf Comedians.
There’s no doubt it’s great technology and the development of iphones, Facetime, skype, use of ipads, and the like will impact on this service as Deaf users can make these calls directly with and do so directly via interpreters, lipspeakers and others.
I hope Sorenson’s input will help ensure standards are properly established and maintained, that Deaf people have a choice and that there is no monopoly by any one outfit. The saddest part of Sorenson’s statement is the line that they … “hope that one day equal access will be delivered in the UK.” That’s a most damning indictment; that in 2012, we Deaf people in the UK do not have equal access to a method most suited to our most natural form of communication – BSL. We must do what we can to stop this discrimination.
Thank you Sorenson for your contribution and, in particular, the nudging of the Luddites.