For several days one of Armenia’s leading television channels has supplied its newscasts with sign-language translation for non-hearing viewers following a relevant request to its owner and senior politician.

At a recent meeting with hundreds of people with hearing disorders Gagik Tsarukyan heard complaints that they feel excluded because of being unable to follow news on TV.

The leader of Armenia’s second most important governing party, Prosperous Armenia, who owns Kentron TV, promised that interpretation for deaf people would be incorporated into his channel’s news programming.

But having only a couple of television channels actually offering sign translation on programs seems too little to thousands of citizens who cannot learn information or follow the news of the day via broadcast media otherwise. The problem becomes particularly acute during elections when, like all the rest, citizens with hearing disorders want to make an informed choice.

Only a few years ago nearly all television channels would comply with the provision to cater for the needs of their non-hearing audiences by supplying at least one of their news programs with sign language translation. Now the overwhelming majority of them limit their compliance with the provision to supplying some programs with running subtitles.

Chairman of Armenia’s Union of the Deaf Grigor Grigoryan says that the fact that media have no translators to communicate information in signing deprives people with hearing problems of their right to get information and be informed on all aspects of life in the country.

“True, today some TV companies provide information in running subtitles for us to read, but it is too fast for us to follow. For a deaf person, no matter how literate he or she may be, it is even more so difficult to read. We get it when we see somebody communicating in the language of signs and we understand what is being said then,” says Grigoryan.

There are 3,000 people with hearing disorders officially registered in Armenia; 200 are minors. It is believed, though, that many more exist who are not recorded by the state.

Sargis Sargsyan, who attends Yerevan’s special school for children with hearing disorders, says that like all other teenagers he also has his hobbies and interests and would like to be informed on many aspects of life.

“I want sign language translators to be there for all TV programs – for standup comedy shows, for programs on health, for news and education programs and even for films. All people around me watch, understand, laugh, but I can’t, because I can’t hear to understand it,” says the 19-year-old.

Sargis’s classmates say that they can read news and other things of interest to them online, but still they often come across words that they, unlike hearing people, can barely understand the meaning of.

Zubeyda Melikyan, who has for 20 years taught at an educational complex and worked as a sign language interpreter for different TV companies, says the sign language is the native language for people with impaired hearing and to be able to be full members of society these people first of all need interpretation to become available on TV. “They [deaf and mute] are very smart, but cannot get the information they need. Sometimes they learn the news only three or four days after their hearing counterparts do. Then, they start discussing it amongst them, and then come to me and ask for the latest on that,” she says.

Principal of the educational complex for children with hearing disorders Ashot Avetisyan says that a majority of sign language translators are hearing people who were born into the families with deaf parents. Sign language translation skills are taught at the Khachatur Abovyan State Teachers’ Training University, but its department today hardly provides a sufficient number of trained specialists.

“Translators are to be trained according to specialties, especially for the social, judicial and health sectors. And such interpreters for television should first of all speak in a literary sign language and be informed on the spheres that interpretation is done about,” says Avetisyan.

The French-Armenian Development Foundation today is developing a program to retrain all sign language interpretation specialists who do not have sufficient knowledge of the literary language of gestures.

“Now we are developing a methodology as a result of which a manual will be created for the ethics, syntax, morphology and grammar of the language of gestures. Then, we will work with the translators and after retraining them will offer specialists also to television companies,” says the Foundation’s Programs Coordinator Nune Balyan.