Service-on-Site Presentation Remarks
Phyllis Ferguson, Canadian Hearing Society, July 20, 2004

President Cotter and Quotarians, it is a real pleasure to be here and to thank you on behalf of the Canadian Hearing Society and our literacy skills program. I would like to take a few minutes to tell you about our work and who we are.

The Canadian Hearing Society was founded here in Canada in 1940. We're the largest direct service provider for people who are deaf, deafened, or hard of hearing. We provide direct services here in Ontario through our 29 offices, where we employ about 450 people. We've had a long relationship with the Quota club.

And in particular, the past governors of District 18, who, through their Helen Mackenzie Trust Fund, provide bursaries for Ontario interpreters—and this is a very important program, because there is a critical shortage of sign language interpreters here in Ontario.

When Marie Dobson-Dunlop called me and asked what program we could suggest for Quotarians to support in this international conference, our literacy program came to mind immediately, because it's basically a program for people who are adults, who have no American Sign Language and no English.

So we're basically speaking about new Canadians. They're a wonderful group of people. I wish you could come to our offices at Spadina and Davenport to meet them. It is a daytime class of about 30 people that do the program in about one to two years. They progress at their own rate. During this daytime classroom program, they are learning English. They're learning American Sign Language. They're learning numeracy. There is a little kitchen where they learn weights and measures, math skills, and the object of this program is to get them into Canadian society so that they can go to school and become a part of our working population.

They're wonderful people. They come from all corners of the world. And dictionaries such as this, that come from the Republic of the Philippines, are going to be really treasured, because we don't have these kinds of resources.

We have people from Iran, Iraq, Sri Lanka, The Philippines. Just a constant flow of Canadian diversity comes through our building with all of the people who attend this program. And so these will be great resources, and all of the school supplies will be used very much—and they are very much appreciated. When I arrive back at the office with 20 of these boxes it's going to be hysteria. They won't believe it!

I do thank you. I hope you enjoyed your conference. It's been a pleasure. We do thank you from our literacy program at the Canadian Hearing Society!

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