Victoria student provides crucial service for deaf community in aftermath of earthquake

Victoria Deaf Studies student Evelyn Pateman has been providing crucial assistance to New Zealand's deaf community during the television coverage of the Christchurch earthquake.

Ms Pateman has been present on screen alongside city officials providing sign language interpretation for Deaf people in Christchurch, and family and friends nationally.

Evelyn is a qualified New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) and English interpreter who grew up in a Deaf family in Christchurch and has been working as a professional interpreter for 15 years.

Along with 11 others, she is currently studying in the Postgraduate Diploma in Sign Language Interpreting, which is being offered for the first time in a two-year collaboration between Macquarie University (Sydney) and the Deaf Studies programme at Victoria University.

Dr Rachel McKee, Senior Lecturer in Deaf Studies says in a civil emergency such as the Christchurch earthquake, access to information becomes a precious commodity.

"The Deaf community who use New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) cannot rely on live radio and TV broadcasts (without captions) or 'word of mouth' sources of information."

She says that Evelyn's work (on and off television) during the earthquake highlights the potential impact of Deaf Studies as a field to making a tangible difference in the lives of a rather invisible community.

Dr McKee says that Deaf student and native NZSL user, Mark Berry, had left his Deaf parents and siblings in Christchurch to begin study at Victoria two days before the earthquake struck.

"Obviously he was anxious about friends and family. He was thrilled to see Evelyn interpreting on the TVNZ broadcast, which he notes is a first for New Zealand in terms of NZSL-access to live media."

To view some of Evelyn’s excellent work during television coverage of press conferences, click on this link:

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/full-update-and-briefing-12-30pm-feb-24-23-video-4039675