Gelu and a friend at efsli 2008
REPORT | Romania 2008
by Gelu Dumitru Bogdan
It was amazing and at the same time very exciting for me to participate at this event organized by EFSLI, which was for me the 1st time.
It was for the 1st time that we participate at this event and I have only praise words regarding the organization of the 16th EFSLI AGM and Conference. I felt welcomed for the 1st time we entered the seminar. I felt like we were entering a new world, a developed one but soon we discovered with pleasure that we were embracing the same ideas and aspirations. The enthusiasm, the efforts, the interactions among the participants, the presenters, and the shared ideas had a very strong positive impact on me.
Despite the fact that at the 16th EFSLI AGM and Conference were in percentage 95% hearing people and not deaf ones, I felt as we were being part of the same world. The motivations, the good atmosphere among the interpreters and the good working conditions led us all at the same concepts/ ideas.
The topic of the conference “Third Language Interpreting” was a new experience for me and at the same time very exciting. The ideas shared by the presentation were a challenge for us. I find it difficult but we learned the importance of the 3rd Language Interpreting. I appreciated so much that we had the possibility to be informed on the Sign Language Interpreters' situation in different parts of Europe in order to inform our future interpreters.
I realized that is very important the communication between other countries, because the exchange of information can be helpful. It can be learned for each others experiences so that we can find an easy and professional way to build and established the priorities in our community.
It was a great opportunity to meet different interpreters from all around Europe; we received new ideas and shared our dreams and future plans. The interrelationship with different associations helped me to develop and share information about others associations around Europe in Romania.
Attending the workshops we talked about everyone’s problems, ideas and difficulties that they experiment and we tried to find some solutions to solve them. These debates had a benefic impact among us and opened our views on how to solve the problems that exist in Romania.
I want to thank the sponsors that made my participation at the conference possible and I would like to thank all persons who supported us with this fund. We want to thank also to the organizers that arranged a faultless Conference. I want to emphasize the fact that I had a good time among the others interpreters and we I learned a lot of new useful things at this event.
With the information, knowledge, enthusiasm and experience that I gained at this seminar we will do our best to lay the foundation of the Romanian Interpreters Association. As I informed you in Romania does not exist authorized interpreters and we want as soon as possible to start courses for interpreters in Romanian Sign Language. The documents for this course are in work. As well we want to make an institute of research together with the Babes Bolyai University, the Faculty of Letter - the Department of Applied Modern Languages.
In the end I want to thank EFSLI from the bottom of our heart for its efforts and that it make it possible the participation at 16th EFSLI AGM and Conference. The words are speechless regarding the experience lived and shared in those few days but the impact had a great positive effect and I am very grateful for it.
Multumesc!!! (Thank you in Romanian)
Bogdan Gelu Dumitru