Coffee Shop Chain in South Africa Hires mostly Deaf workers

I Love Coffee is a chain of cafés in South Africa. Founder Gary Hopkins says he was moved to staff the shops mainly with Deaf and hard-of-hearing employees because "sign language isn’t really recognised as a language in South Africa, and that has led to great levels of unemployment." Read the full story here or watch the video below:

Virgin Photoshops Implant out of Ad

here are the two photos in question

Virgin Active South Africa health clubs is apologizing after removing the cochlear implant from a model in a promotional photograph it posted on Instagram. Simone Botha Welgemoed got the implant before she was two years old. The ballerina was crowned Miss Deaf South Africa fives years ago and is an active deaf advocate in that country. In response to the controversy, a Virgin spokesperson said:

“We issued an immediate apology to Simone. We had a good heart-to-heart meeting with her. We 100% accept that the action of photo-shopping the image is not in line with our values as a business, nor in keeping with the welcome we extend to everyone. We got it wrong and we realise that.

Hotel staffed by deaf workers

Nearly half the staff at the Park Inn Radisson Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa are deaf. News24 spoke with the Director of sales and marketing, Brendon Hart, and with one of the deaf workers, Dale Holmes.

Deaf Teen Who Never Learned To Communicate Transformed by Sign Language

A deaf teen born in remote area of Uganda has his first conversation after learning sign at the age of 15. Journalist Kiki King shows what happened in a documentary airing on the UK's Channel 4. Watch Patrick's amazing transformation begin during his first sign language lesson in the video below. The entire documentary will be available Nov 22.

Health agency's flaws

A doctor who has worked with Starkey Hearing foundation blames the World Health Organization for making the situation worse for people in Africa. Dr. Robert Dean has a practice in Palm Harbor, Florida and has led to several humanitarian travel missions, writes this in the Tampa Bay Times:

I've been humbled and honored to help to mitigate hearing loss through the Starkey Hearing Foundation. But as we observe World Health Day, we need to ask why the World Health Organization isn't doing more to shrink the demand for missions like the ones that keep Starkey volunteers so busy.

Read the opinion piece here.

Lessons from working with Ugandan deaf children

Canadian students visiting Uganda as part of a summer program learned to appreciate the deaf in a new way. Nidhi Joseph and Ooi Koon Peng spent three months working for a school for the Deaf in a rural part of the country. They shared their discoveries at a TEDx event. Here's a video of their presentation from last year.

Bogus Terp calls himself "Great Fake"

image from Facebook video

Thamsanqa Jantjies says that even if he is a fake sign language interpreter, he is "a great fake". Jantjies caused an international stir after he "interpreted" at Nelson Mandela's memorial service. He said he is a "great fake" because "I expose what is going on in the government and system" in a rambling video posted on Facebook. Watch the video here. You can see in the video he is wearing a shirt with the word Sterkfontein on it. That is the name of a psychiatric hospital in Krugersdorp. Jantjies was admitted there a few days ago. He has admitted to taking part in killing two people a decade ago, but he did not stand trial because of metal health issues. Read more about that episode here.

Fake Terp in hospital

The fake sign language interpreter is now in a psychiatric hospital. Sign language experts said Thamsanqa Jantjie wasn't doing anything but flapping his hands during Nelson Madela's memorial service, which drew together world leaders like Barack Obama. Jantjie claimed schizophrenia caused him to have hallucinations and hear voices during the service. Johannesburg's Star is reporting that he has been admitted to the Sterkfontein Psychiatric Hospital. Jantjie has been linked to the mod murder of two men a decade ago. Read about that here.

New Terp Rules in SA next year

The South African parliament has passed a new language bill--and the Department of Arts and Culture says it "has nothing to do with the interpreter at Nelson Mandela's memorial." The law would require interpreters to register and hold certain qualifications. Read the story at the Independent Online here.

Fake interpreter part of a mob that killed two men

The fake interpreter at Nelson Mandela memorial service was involved with burning two men to death, according to the Associated Press. Thamsanqa Jantjie was supposed to stand trial a decade ago for the crime, but according to a relative and friends, he avoided prison because the court found him mentally unfit. Jantjie allegedly joined an angry mob that found two men with a stolen TV. The group of vigilantes put tires around the two men and torched them. Jantjie admits his involvement, telling the Sunday Times newspaper of Johannesburg, "It was a community thing, what you call mob justice, and I was also there." eNCA, a South African news station reports that Jantjie was accused of rape but acquitted. He was sentenced to three years in prison for theft, according to eNCA, but may not have spent any time in jail. Attempts by various news outlets to find the school that Jantjie claims to have studied sign language at have not been successful.

What was really said by fake interpreter

Jimmy Kimmel invited a sign language interpreter on his show last week to try to interpret what Thamsanqa Jantjie was signing at the Nelson Mandela funeral. The interpreter told the audience that Jantjie was doing some words of sign language, but it was unrelated to the speeches being given in Mandela's honor and "complete gibberish." The Kimmel video is posted below.

SNL Mocks Fake Funeral Terp

Saturday Night Live addressed the Nelson Mandela fake interpreter fiasco last night in its opening sketch. Kenan Thompson portrayed Thamsanqa Jantjie, the incoherent South African interpreter while Jay Pharaoh pretended to be President Barack Obama. The interpreter is eventually seized by Secret Service personnel, but later returns to shout the opening line from the NBC show: "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night Live." The video is below on DeafNewsToday.com.

Fake interpreter comes forward

He suffered a schizophrenic episode. That's the explanation of what happened from the man accused of pretending to be a sign language interpreter. Thamsanqa Jantjie told Johannesburg's Star newspaper he was ill when he presented himself on stage as world leaders honored Nelson Mandela during a South African memorial service. But people in the deaf community say he was gesturing gibberish. Jantjie claims he started hearing voices and hallucinating while on stage. He told the Star:

"There was nothing I could do. I was alone in a very dangerous situation. I tried to control myself and not show the world what was going on. I am very sorry. It's the situation I found myself in."

Jantjie said he did not know what triggered the attack and said he took medication for his schizophrenia, though he also told Johannesburg's Talk Radio 702 he was pleased with his performance. Read more in the Star here. Below is a eNCAnews report that compares what Jantjie did and what a real interpreter would do.

Stephen Colbert on Fake Terp

The sign language scandal at Mandela's Memorial service got the attention of comedian Stephen Colbert. He spend a segment of his Comedy Central show on the topic. You can see it below (captions available).

The Colbert Report
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CNN report on fake interpreter

The CNN went to Gallaudet University for part of its video report on the fake interpreter that showed up on stage in South Africa at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela. Watch it below on DeafNewsToday.com.

Mystery interpreter Named

The UK's Daily Mirror says it knows the identity of the fake interpreter at the Nelson Mandela memorial. According to the paper, "sources in South Africa last night named him as Thami Jantjie." And it appears he's done the same thing before--there is video of him next to the South African president at an African National Congress event last year. Jantjie's gestures did not match those of an actual interpreter in the corner of South African TV screens. Read more here.

Reaction to Fake Terp

The Obama Administration said it has no comment about the fake sign language interpreter who showed up on stage at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela, according to USA Today. Questions are being referred questions to the South African government. But White House spokesman Josh Earnest it would be "a shame" if this incident became "a distraction" from the many tributes to Mandela. Meanwhile, Rochester Institute of Technology's National Technical Institute for the Deaf is offering experts to the media that can talk about what happened. You can read a press release here. A social media reporter for the Washington Post suggests what happened could be "a legacy of apartheid." Caitlin Dewey explains why here.

African TV network to add sign language interpreters

The President of the African country of Tanzania has ordered TBC, the Tanzania Broadcasting Cooperation, "to use sign language experts in its programmes" according to The Citizen. Read the story here.

Deaf-blind priest not allowed on flight

Cyril Axelrod

An airline mistreated a deaf-blind Catholic priest during a flight this past weekend, according to the Deaf Federation for South Africa. The Queen of England recently gave 71-year-old Cyril Axelrod the Order of the British Empire, which you can read about here. He was the first deaf-blind person to receive the honor. But things were different on Saturday when Comair, a British Airways franchisee,  refused to let Axelrod board a flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg because he was flying by himself. He was supposed to speak at a mass for the deaf, according to News24. Axelrod showed a medical card issued to him by British Airways, indicating he is able to fly alone--something he's done many times. The Comair staff wasn't interested in trying to communicate with him, according to News24. The Independent online reports that Axelrod even recited the safety instructions back to them through his interpreter, but to no avail. A Comair spokesman says the decision was a safety issue, and that the airline "requires customers who are deaf as well as blind to be escorted by a qualified person who can communicate with the customer in case of an emergency" because its flight crew is not trained to help deaf or deaf-blind customers. According to the airline, Axelrod should have bought a second ticket for an interpreter to travel with him.

Cycling for South African Education

A deaf cyclist is peddling across the US to raise awareness and funds for the education of deaf South African students. Dr. Murdoc Henderson, a professor at Gallaudet University, started in San Francisco and is on his way to Washington, DC for his relief organization called Intaba. KOMU-TV caught up with him this week in Missouri. Here is a short video from the TV station.