The Greater Vancouver Association of the Deaf (GVAD) and the BC Association of the Deaf (BCAD), with its committee and volunteer members are pleased to announce we are participating in the Shine the Blue Light movement initiated by the World Federation of the Deaf.
Monday, September 23rd is International Day of Sign Languages, as declared by the UN in 2017. It is widely promoted by the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) ( https://wfdeaf.org/who-we-are/our-story/ )
This initiative is to raise awareness about Sign Languages and is a global movement of deaf unity and concerted advocacy to raise awareness of the issues deaf people face in their everyday lives.
The UN resolution in 2017 establishing the day “acknowledges that early access to sign language and services in sign language, including quality education available in sign language, is vital to the growth and development of the deaf individual and critical to the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals. It recognizes the importance of preserving sign languages as part of linguistic and cultural diversity. It also emphasizes the principle of “nothing about us without us” in terms of working with Deaf communities.”
Our organizations have contacted several cities in the Greater Vancouver area such as New Westminster, Surrey and Vancouver and the Province, and we were successful in getting City of Surrey and City of New Westminster to take action. Also various landmarks in the downtown Vancouver area have approved to participate in the Shine the Blue Lights for Sign Languages on Monday September 23, 2024.
Since so many of the landmarks in the Greater Vancouver area are lighting up, the GVAD thought it would be neat to set up a Car Rally where people meet up first in Surrey, and carpool to go to all the sites where the colours blue would be shining, and the local people can meet at the area close to them as well and create group photos and opportunities to marvel at the lights and celebrate!
Date: Monday September 23, 2024
8:30pm. Surrey Civic Plaza, 13450 104 Ave, Surrey, BC V3T 1V8
9:00pm. City Hall, City of New Westminster, 511 Royal Ave, New Westminster, BC V3L 1H9
9:40pm. Meet at Science World, 1455 Quebec Street, Vancouver, BC V6A 327
to see BOTH Science World and BC Place from the same spot at a corner of False Creek.
10:15pm. Canada Place, 999 Canada Pl, Vancouver, BC V6C 3E1
If you don’t have a car, simply choose one place to use public transit and meet us there!
Please be patient if the people have not yet arrived at the locations, everyone will arrive close enough around that time. When there’s a large enough group, we will do photos, etc.
Group photos will be taken at each location and social media posts will be encouraged tagging the World Federation of the Deaf @wfdeaf and using the hashtags #IDSL #BlueLight
For more information please check out:
https://bit.ly/IDSL2024ShineBlueLightonSL
(Blue Lights for Sign Language WFD Information Sheet)
The World Federation of the Deaf (WFD): https://wfdeaf.org/who-we-are/our-story/
International Day of Sign Language WFD Press release: https://wfdeaf.org/…/un-23-sept-as-international-day…/
UNESCO IDSL Resolution (19 December 2017):
https://www.iesalc.unesco.org/…/international-day…/...
WFD post about UN Sept 23 as IDSL:
https://wfdeaf.org/…/un-23-sept-as-international-day…/
#IDSL #BlueLights #IWDeaf
