September 19-23 is the International Week of the Deaf People and International Sign Language Day, we GVAD are celebrating our heritage and our community that we would be not able to be here without our community. This year theme is “Inclusive Communities for All”. Our board has made this video to honor #IWDP2022 and #IDSL2022. Transcript is below.

Transcript Start
[Title Page that says International Week of Deaf People]
[Caucasian male wearing striped shirt colored blue, yellow and white with blue background behind him and a painting of trees on a lake]
“Hello everyone my name is Cameron [hand shaped ‘C’ taps on the left side of forehead] I’m on GVAD board as secretary. We Gvad are thrilled to celebrate this week, what? International Week of Deaf People, also International Day of Sign Language. Wow! This week we will recongize our community, without our community, how we will thrive and fight for or rights, for our voice to be heard, without us working together, how we can succeed? [Nods] This year theme is… “Inclusive Communities for All.” Now our board members will show their videos showing how our communities has impacted their lives, how it developed their lives or their experiences, they will give short video clip. To recongize International Week of the Deaf People. To recongize our community. That even to this day, we still need to fight. Together. As community. To make sure our voice will be always HEARD. Thank you. Now we will watch the video clips from our board.
[Video shifts to other Caucasian male wearing white shirt with blue wall as background behind him. A text pops up saying “Interim President – Forrest Smith]
“I love sign language, I grew up with sign language, it is beautiful and powerful, and I still advocate for better accessiblity for all in BC.”
[Video shifts to other video clip]
[A Indo female wearing grey and black shirt with flowers on the chest with blue background with a text popping up in background saying ‘Vice President – Raakhee Pillay]
“Hi! I have a short and sweet story I want to share. I grew up at africa, and I had to learn oral and really struggled with it, I moved here to B.C. at age of 9, I noticed SEE (Sign Exact English) and was picking up sign language. When I moved up to high school, they used American Sign Language (ASL), I was taken aback and started learning more about it and found in common with people in the community and finally had sense of belonging, giving her feeling of inspiration and proud to be deaf.
[A Caucasian male wearing black shirt with white image of cars and white font text that says ‘WESTSIDE AUTOMOTIVE’ with blue background with text popping up in the backround saying ‘Vice President – Joel Kvarnberg]
“I want to let you know, Sign Language is like water, we can’t live without water.”
[A Indo male wearing blue shirt with blue background and a text popping up saying ‘Vice President – Imran Hakamali’]
Now we’re celebrating IWD’s theme, what it is? Wanting to have inclusive communities for all. What it does mean, we see many different groups of deaf people, we want to bring them all together and work together, socialize together. Sign Language is precious and appreciate each other, know each other How? By using Sign Language. We all have it. Breaking down into different groups? Unnecessary. We should be all in this together. I hope to see this from on now. [Thumbs up]
[A Indo female wearing black shirt with blue background and a text popping up saying ‘Treasurer – Jessie Sangha’]
I was born in Singapore, I learned English Sign Language until I moved to Calgary in 1990 and learned ASL there. Wow, I struggled a lot while learning and picking up ASL. Until I finally fully understood and became fluent in ASL. Why we do use Sign Language? Because it comes from our hands, our body.
[A Caucasian male wearing striped shirt colored blue, yellow and white with blue background behind him. A text pops up saying ‘Secretary – Cameron Epp’]
Deaf community is important – Why? With no community, who I am? Who’s Cameron? I’d have no identity. I’d be lost. With Community… Having Sign language, being able to connect with others in the community… It makes me feel contented. I know who I am – Cameron and I have a community.
[Video switches with a text in black background]

#IWDP #IDSL

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