Steve Hamerdinger
_________________________________
"The way of this world is to praise dead saints and persecute living
ones."

-Nathaniel Howe



-----Original Message-----
From: Jay L Croft [mailto:jlcroft@...]
Sent: Monday, May 12, 2003 10:43 AM
To: janta@...; Beesli@...; ccrump@...;
lisa.frey@...; Steve@...;
njhayes@...; BM7678@...; barry@...;
AshVal2001@...; boycrocker@...; dgbarnes@...;
Gilliam4NAD@...; Gordonshire@...; JacobEric@...;
ljlaurin@...; RFRSmallwood@...; rsbell68@...;
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Subject: Fw: FW: recognition of Mexican Sign Language


Thought youi might like to know what's going on South of the Border.
This was forwarded to my by my daughter.

The Rev. Jay L. Croft
St. John's Church for the Deaf
3794 Crosshaven Dr., Birmingham AL 35223
TTY 205-967-1437 Fax 205-967-1430
JLCROFT@...



--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Croft, Jennifer A" <JCROFT@...>
To: 'Jay L Croft' <jlcroft@...>
Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 11:17:31 -0400
Subject: FW: recognition of Mexican Sign Language
Message-ID: <6EDF54DDF612D411B80900508B94DE0A0BF07767@...>

Dad,

Thought you'd find this interesting.

Jenne


-----Original Message-----
From: Marcel Broesterhuizen [mailto:broester@...]
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2003 3:33 PM
To: Marcel. Broesterhuizen@theo. kuleuven. ac. Be
Subject: recognition of Mexican Sign Language

Bulletin 153 May the 2nd, 2003

To the Mexican Deaf Community,
To Deaf's families,
To our supporting hearing friends,
To our friends across the world:

The 30th of April, 2003, the Mexican Lower Chamber of Congress voted and
approved the Bill that will lead to the proclamation of the:

FEDERAL LAW FOR DISABLED PEOPLE
(LEY FEDERAL PARA LAS PERSONAS CON DISCAPACIDAD)

We defeated multiple efforts that were aimed at leaving the Mexican Deaf
Community and its demands out of the negotiating process (which we will
inform you about in the near future). We got through a few and
important ones, such as declaring:

1) The recognition of LSM (Lengua de Serdas Mexicana) as the national
language of the Mexican Deaf.

2) The right of all semilingual and speaking (hard of hearing) deaf to
have access to LSM.

3) The creation of a national subsystem of Bilingual Education for the
Deaf.

4) The duty of all Federal offices to provide (LSM) interpreters, cart
services, relay services.

5) The obligation of Federal government to develop the technology needed
so that Deaf, Deaf and blind (and others) may use telecommunications,
may have access to mass media, public events. (Such as interpreters,
Closed Captioning or relay services)

6) The obligation of the Federal government to promote the application
of the items enumerated in 5.

It will not be easy to force the Executive power to comply with all of
these goals (specially 4, 5 and 6, which were diluted in the negotiating
process, and became pretty vague and open to interpretation). Many new
regulations will have to be created, and strong lobbying groups will
have to be confronted. But we opened a door and we plan to get through
it, all the way. We are counting on your support.

We publicly recognize that we would have not achieved anything without
the effort of the Congresswoman Lorena Martinez Rodriguez, and the
Congressman Dip. Salvador Rocha Diaz, for they firmly pushed forward our
points of view, and gained the support of the PRI (Partido
Revolucionario Institucional) parliamentary group for our causes. And
they did so without interfering in any way with our organizations,
always respecting our criteria and our independence.

You may consult the text of the future law (for it still has to be
reviewed by the higher chamber of Congress, returned to the lower
chamber, and finally sent to the Executive power to be published) in our
main Internet page (in Spanish, so far): http://homepage.mac.com/chido/
Or directly in the following address:
http://homepage.mac.com/chido/gp_2003-04-30.html

In a preliminary fashion, we have outlined in boldface the most relevant
sections of this Law with regards to the Mexican Deaf.

FOR A WELL EARNED SUCCESS IN BATTLLE,
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL !!!

On behalf of the National Front for the Defense of Deaf's Cultural
Rights (Frente Nacional para la Defensa de los Derechos Culturales del
Sordo), Boris Fridman Mintz, adviser and honorary member of FEMESOR
(Federacion Mexicana de Sordos).

PD Spread the word, and the sign, at will.