My activity as an International Policy Fellow during the first part of my Fellowship had two distinct - but intimately connected aims. The first aim, which derives from the research oriented component of my project, has been to assess the current level of accessibility of deaf to the visual media in Romania, Hungary and the EU countries as well as the current legislation and policies in the field. The second aim was raising public awareness on the issue in order to build a coalition of political, civil, media and other kind of stakeholders, in order to promote access of deaf and other categories of disabled to the visual media.

During the first months of my fellowship, my attention was also devoted to setting up a working team able to encompass all these fields of research and advocacy activity. This task was made easier by the involvement in the project of the Senzor Foundation, specialized in promoting the rights of deaf and hard of hearing people. Collaborators of the foundation have been involved in the process of gathering data and in conducting interviews. They also helped in involving external collaborators who on their turn could use their own contacts. Thus the making up of project team turned out in fact to be a very important stage of coalition building around the assumed policy objectives. This team includes representatives of deaf and other type of disability advocacy organizations, journalists of written and visual media, academic researchers and policy makers. With the help of the involved journalists, at the start of the project two introductory articles appeared in two journals published in Satu-Mare (Szatmari Friss Ujsag, 20^th January and Gazeta de Nord-Vest, 17^th January 2001 ).

The research work done during this period included:

- Comparative analysis of relevant media and disability legislation in Romania, Hungary and the European Union

- Sociological investigation of deaf (and other disabled) access to the visual media in Romania and Hungary by means of survey of selected television stations and interviews with key media representatives

The survey was based on my own questionnaire (finalized at the end of March) and took place during April and May at national television stations in Bucharest and Budapest and at local television stations in a selected region in the central part of Romania. Interviews have been conducted with program directors and heads of public relation departments as well as with producers of programs dealing with the problems of disabled. The first results of the local TV station surveys have been published in an article in a nationally distributed journal (Erteni a hallhatatlant, [Understanding what you cannot hear] Romaniai Magyar Szo, 23 May 2001).

My external mentor, Mr. Attila Varga, a member of the Chamber of Deputies of the Romanian Parliament, helped to open a direct channel of communication to the committees of Law, Culture and Media of the Romanian Parliament and to the Nation Audio-visual Council. My external mentor was of much help also in providing information concerning current legislation in the field and in establishing contacts with television companies. The interviews with television program directors, beyond gathering relevant information, also had the aim to draw attention to the importance of the issue and to the necessity to find solutions.

In the same time, contacts have been initiated with the leaders of the Romanian National Association of Deaf (ANSR) To our satisfaction, the demand to gain access of deaf to the television program has been included in the official agenda of Deaf Association. In June 2001 the first negotiations on this matter between the representatives of the concerned central TV stations, of ANSR and of the National Audio-visual Council took place in Bucharest. It was agreed that for the next meeting the deaf representatives are going to work out plans for introducing special accessibility procedures in the television programs and will make an assessment of the incumbent costs.

In the second part of my fellowship, I will focus on the continuation of my research and advocacy work. In-depth interviews will be conducted with certain key stakeholders representing policy makers, the organizations of disabled, the media and the private business in order to work out a viable strategy for future action. Attention should be devoted to ensuring the continuity of the negotiation process, which already has started and to keeping the issue up in the public agenda.

back