Mr. Adam Kosa (left) Invited Guests from Overseas - Part 1 -Mr. Adam Kosa- Mr. Adam Kosa (36) is a Hungarian born lawyer and is the first and only deaf member of the EU Parliament, whose mother tongue is sign language. In July of this year, Japanese parliament passed the amendment bill for The Basic Act for Persons with Disabilities. According to Health, Labour and Welfare Minister Yoko Komiyama, the Japanese government is planning to enact the Comprehensive Welfare Act for Persons with Disabilities (provisional) in 2012, the Disability Discrimination Act (provisional) in 2013 and thereafter to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In Europe, 19 countries have already ratified the UN Convention. We invited Mr. Adam Kosa, an expert in this field, to learn from him the current situation in Europe and to receive advice on post-ratification society in Japan. The lecture given by Mr. Kosa at the Members�f Office Building of the House of Representatives on October 19 was attended by approximately 200 people connected with the Japan Disability Forum and others, and ended in great success. In my opening address I mentioned that it is important to create an equitable society where persons, whether with or without disabilities, can live together. Yet, I, myself, feel there is still so much more to learn in order to contribute my share of the work, as persons with disabilities include those persons with physical, visual, hearing, intellectual, mental, developmental or other disabilities. Following are the activities in support of the people with disabilities that we currently carry out at the Nippon Foundation: Domestic Projects �@ Distribution of welfare vehicles in support of the disabled and the elderly persons, and Magokoro-Zepppin (Products par excellence) project* (*Branding, adding value and selling of carefully selected high quality products made at facilities for the disabled.) �A Art Brut Japon Exhibition to preserve and exhibit Disabled Art. �B Activities towards sign language education and enactment of the Sign Language Act (provisional) International Projects �@ University education network for the visual- and hearing-impaired �A Dissemination of sign linguistics in the Asia-Pacific region �B Support for the planning of the enactment of the Disability Act and the establishment of the Independent Living Centers in Vietnam The Great East Japan Earthquake Relief Projects �@ Distribution of second-hand vehicles for support of persons with disabilities �A Construction of barrier-free temporary houses, meeting the special needs of persons with disabilities �B Dispatch of deaf social workers for consultation and moral and mental support �C Support (captions and sign language) for remote information and communication access for the hearing-impaired It is very difficult for persons with hearing impairment to participate equally in society in Japan and we cannot, in any way, say that Japan is an advanced country when we consider the very severe environment that they live in. The hearing-impaired persons in the recent earthquake and tsunami affected areas had no means of access to information and they were as if neglected. It took even some time for sigh language interpretation to be availed to the deaf community for the press conference of the Chief Cabinet Secretary, and there were hardly any subtitles used for television programs, forcing them to lead a difficult life filled with anxiety. Although belated, the Nippon Foundation has opened a remote interpretation and information communication service center (caption and sign language and sign interpretation) for the hearing-impaired persons in the disaster-stricken areas, using video telephone. This center is located in the Nippon Foundation office in Tokyo, providing service 365 days. I have written about the issues of deaf people on many occasions in my past blogs. Although the recognition of sign language as an official language on a par with the Japanese language must be given appraisal, yet there is still a need for our national policy to be improved so that the deaf people can use their talent to their full potential and to be active in society. For example, Japan has a history of deaf education where since 1939 the deaf students were bound under lip reading as a method of their education. Although recently, there are more and more schools that have positive attitudes towards using sign language, the problem is that the competence of sign language among the teachers is low. Some cannot sign and many cannot understand the speedy signs of the deaf. Another issue is the income of sign interpreters. It is unstable and I hear that many sign interpreters are working in conditions close to volunteer work. The total number of deaf university students in Japan is approximately 1500. About 200 of these students study at the National University Corporation of Tsukuba University of Technology, the only higher education institute for the hearing-impaired and visually-impaired persons in Japan. The rest of the students are studying at universities throughout the nation yet there is insufficient availability of sign interpretation or use of captions, and the quality of higher education for the deaf is very poor and fall far behind in comparison to western countries. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology does not even have a department that is dedicated to university education of persons with disabilities.