In a moving speech to members of the Lions Club, Jennifer Jeffers-Grant yesterday called for all of the Island's deaf citizens be treated equally.

Mrs. Jeffers-Grant, who is the president of the Bermuda Islands Association of the Deaf (formally known as the Bermuda Deaf Awareness Association), knows first hand the struggles of Bermuda's deaf community because of her own inability to hear.

And Mrs. Jeffers-Grant literally took matters into her own hands yesterday when she used sign language to demand that the approximately 300-500 members of the deaf community "be treated as first class citizens in a first class country rather than second or third class citizens".

Mrs. Jeffers-Grant said the existing law on disabilities needs to be reviewed and expanded to meet the needs of the disabled and the deaf.

"The deaf have been meeting on a monthly basis at the Mariners Club," she said. "There is a very serious need to set up a Commission of the deaf which will be responsible to serve the deaf community run by qualified deaf administrators.

"This office will handle the problems of the deaf on a daily basis and act as a liaison with the Government."

Through interpreter Marie Binns, she said: "In Bermuda, just like other parts of the world, hearing people have been making decisions for deaf people for far too long. But unlike Bermuda, other parts of the world have been listening to their deaf communities."

Mrs. Jeffers-Grant became completely deaf after contracting spinal meningitis when she was nine. After returning to Bermuda from Ontario Business College in Canada, she worked as a clerk typist and secretary for five years.

Not letting the odds beat her, she returned to school and received a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education and a Master of Education in Education of the Hearing Impaired/Special Education. She is now teaching deaf children at Victor Scott Primary school.

"Deaf adults on the Island are badly in need of Basic Adult Education, or a GED. They do not have access to higher education because there are no qualified certified sign language interpreters available.

"The problem is that the deaf organisation does not have proper funding to oversee this need."

She said that the organisation desperately needs an annual budget of at least $100,000 to pay for special equipment and a full-time interpreter.

The money that they are receiving at the moment is not enough to cover the cost of a single hearing aid which has a starting price of $4,000.

Mrs. Jeffers-Grant and her husband, F. Wellington Fahnbulleh III, who is also deaf, have visited many places world wide including Third World countries. She said that she was impressed with them because of their "struggle to get equal opportunity for the deaf".

She said that these other countries' governments not only give support by placing laws on behalf of their deaf citizens, but they also have budgets that support the deaf with their education, training for employment, and special equipment once they have finished a high school education.

"We would like to see deaf adults become self-sufficient rather than a liability to society," she said.

Another concern that she brought up was with the lack of closed captioning equipment for both local TV stations.

"A deaf person only sees the names of persons on the news but is left puzzled confused, and wondering what is going on?

"When I went to Barbados for a Deaf Conference many years ago, the local TV station made an effort to keep deaf informed. They did not have CC, but they had an interpreter give a brief summary of the news in sign language at the end of the programme."