Deaf people in Argentina have now access to material on sexual and reproductive health in Argentine Sign Language.

 Last week the new material was freely delivered to institutions around the country.

Last November 23 Canales Asociación Civil two new pieces of educational accessible material for deaf people were presented in an event that took place at the Auditorium of the Children’s Museum.

 These are:

Cuidarte está en tus manos (Looking after yourself is in your hands) - A video in Argentine Sign Language (LSA) on HIV / AIDS prevention and other Sexually Transmitted Infections, created together with the team of the Buenos Aires AIDS Foundation (FBAS) and the Argentina Confederation of Deafmutes (CAS).

 AND

La Familia en tus manos (Family is in your hands) a practical guide for mothers and deaf parents on familiar planning, sexual health care and upbringing, created together with the professional team of the Adolescence Service of the Argerich Hospital.

All the educational material was delivered free to organizations such us schools for the deaf, deaf associations, libraries, health services and other institutions that work with inclusive projects in the whole country.

Material in Sign Language makes possible for the deaf community to have accessibility to a kind of information from which it is usually excluded due to idiomatic reasons. Through their language, LSA, the deaf population will be able to be informed on how to take care of their health, how to plan a family and they will have the opportunity to decide on their life project.

During the event, Alex Freyre, the executive director of FBAS, emphasized the importance of reforming certain structural issues to make the system really accessible for all. Other members of FBAS showed up in the event, such us Natalia Arlandi who coordinated the training for the deaf leaders that developed workshops on HIV prevention in deaf schools of Buenos Aires.

Cuidarte está en tus manos is a double project: part of this project consisted in training of deaf leaders who transmitted “from deaf to deaf” this information to deaf teenagers. CAS was the organism entrusted to select the deaf participants and to perform the follow up of their actions. Through those workshops more than 250 deaf students got for the first time this type of visual information from the hand of deaf adults. "An innovative experience that moves away these teenagers from a frequent risky situation in which they might be due to lack of information; and probably the best piece of news for the upcoming 1st of December - World AIDS Day" expressed Canales’ spokeswoman.

Another part of the project was the elaboration of the audio-visual material (in LSA, with subtitles in Spanish and voice over) so that this information, inaccessible until now, will be available to the whole deaf and hearing community. Though this material makes a fundamental difference, it is imperative to work directly with students in schools and institutions for the deaf throughout Argentina, in order to transmit this information from the point of view and the language of the deaf - was the message with which Juan Jose Lemmo, coordinator of the deaf leaders team, described the experience.

Before this project, sexual health was a right subdued for some sectors of society; this was one of the conclusions emphasized by Dr. Viviana Medina, medical pediatrician, coordinator of the clinical area of the Adolescence Service of the Argerich Hospital and secretary FUSA2000 (Foundation for the Health of the Teenager of the year 2000). Dr. Medina was one of the members of the medical team that worked with Canales on the content selection for the written material Family is in your hands. This project also consisted of workshops dictated in schools of deaf (attended by more than 230 students) and in the production of a written guide which includes two DVD. One of the discs is an interpretation of the contents to LSA and it contains audio in order to share the information with the hearing community. The other one is a version in LSA performed by a deaf adult, which contains the same information but is narrated from the perspective of a deaf person.

Family in your Hands is an educational material that will bring the necessary information to deaf couples for them to decide autonomously about family planning and to make decisions about sexual care and family care. This, which seems obvious, is a serious difficulty with which many deaf people have to cope with daily. Communication barriers are often the cause for the appropriation of grandparents or other hearing relatives of the rights and responsibilities of the own parents: communication with the children, with the doctors, with the schoolmates parents, etc.

Outstanding members of the deaf community were present at the event, such as Emilia Machado, ex-president of CAS; César Druetta, current vice-president of the same organization and Maria Rosa Druetta, the current president who closed the event with a few words about the relevance of both pieces of educational material for the argentine deaf community.

Guillermina Lázaro, director of ASHOKA, the international network of social entrepreneurs of which both Alex Freyre (FBAS) and Silvana Veinberg (Director of Canales) are members, was present at the meeting.