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 SAF Recipients 2005 - Serbia & Montenegro

REPORT | Serbia and Montenegro 2005

by Ana Lukic and Vera Jovanovic

Interpreters from Serbia & Montenegro Attending this year's EFSLI event, we had a possibility to hear for the first time in live contact about the Sign language interpreters' situation in different parts of Europe.

It was important because we could place ourselves in the right place, in the sense that we didn't have the right picture about what is happening in this field in some other parts of the world or Europe, so we had no idea about where would we be comparing to that.

With this event we now have more information, it is still not so much, especially because it's impossible to hear or to say everything in just day and a half, but it was surely enough to start making a real picture and to find us a place within that picture. Some questions have appeared in our minds that have never existed before; some things related to working conditions, for example.

It was also very important to hear that our colleagues from Europe work in many different situations, for example in universities and in schools, which is not the case in our country. We got some very good ideas on how to try to solve some problems in our country. It was also very interesting and very important for us to hear that, however, we all have, more or less common problems, which makes us worry less and makes us more capable to deal with them. We also find it was very important that we had a chance to present the situation in our country, so the colleagues from Europe could get to know about us and the challenges we meet.

We were very sorry this year's event was shorter than previous years, but it was nevertheless, interesting and very important for us. So we would like to thank the Special Attendance Fund for the possibility to be there and to all the others for making us feel comfortable and make it easier for us to cope with everything.

So, all together, it was a very important experience for us, although we were sorry it was too short. It is rather difficult to gather (more or less) all the interpreters from our country, or at least one representative from each region, since we are not really organized, but we will certainly do it by the end of the year. So we are planning to hold a meeting to present everything we had a chance to meet in Denmark, to express our impressions, to say our suggestions and to try to find the best ways to implement some of the ideas we got.

We also find it very important that one of us is now an individual member of EFSLI(with membership paid by EFLI SAF for this year) which is the way to keep us all informed about everything that is happening in Europe (these information will be available to all our colleagues from SCG)

We also think it was a really good idea (from one of the delegates) to try to organize this kind of meetings in some other parts of Europe, even in some countries whose interpreters are not the members of EFSLI. Because it's possible that it would be easier for interpreters from eastern and some other parts of Europe to come, and also because we think it would make this organization and this idea more popular in these other parts of Europe, which would be good for everybody. But, we were really happy to come to Denmark; we had a really good time! And we would like to thank for that, in the first place to EFSLI SAF but also to the organizers and all the people who were the part of this event. The atmosphere was really good, it was work and fun in the same time and in our opinion it is the best way to do something. We would also like to thank the Organization of Deaf of Belgrade that helped us raise the rest of the funding to make this trip possible.

In this moment we are preparing an article for our Deaf and Hard of Hearing Association's newsletter, to inform deaf society in our country about this event, and we are trying to get in touch with a journalist from our national TV so that we could say something about it to the wider audience. We hope that this will not be just one time visit to EFSLI and that we will find the way in the future to become a regular part of these events and a good partner in future work. So: thanks for everything! good work! best wishes! and

Best regards!

Ana Lukic and Vera Jovanovic
from Serbia and Montenegro (SCG)