Firstly I would like to offer a special tribute to two people. Mr. Stig Ohlson, because he has always given me opportunities to grow as a person by giving me the chance to help others. Also for his work in Latin America helping deaf-blind people achieve. And to Yolanda de RodrĄguez, a Colombian deaf-blind person who was the first to be concerned about deaf-blind in Latin America also her special way of communicating, and her work with deaf-blind for which she is recognized and loved by many people throughout the world.

Now, I would like to extend my greetings to you, and thank the Scientific Committee of the 7th Hellen Keller World Conference, and your Chair Person, Jan Scahill, for her kind invitation to participate in this workshop "Co-operation Between Countries ".

My Co - operation theme is unity of members of an organization working with other organizations looking to achieve common ideals. Working in a group is a way of reaching goals. While projects are undertaken, it becomes easier to increase associations according to their needs.

The topic of Co-operation between countries is very extensive and my experience has been in Latin America in the POSCAL project., that means, the "Program to Create Deaf-blind Organizations in Latin America". This project operates in the following countries located in Central and South America as: Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and the Caribbean Islands of Cuba and Dominican Republic, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina.

For the less developed Latin American countries, without resources from the government, support is necessary from the more developed countries. Latin American countries have grown solving their most important needs, and giving a better quality of life to their members. To receive international Co operation, associations must show positive results in their work, giving more possibilities to the deaf-blind people.

Almost all Latin American countries do not have government support. They are not taking care of the architectonic barrier difficulties for deaf-blind people to have complete rehabilitation. Governments do not administer the Standard Rights of the United Nations. They are not committed to rehabilitation services to reach and maintain a high level of autonomy and mobility for such people.

Governments should take care of and establish support services for the disabled people to get equal opportunities, with information access, communication, occupational and cultural activities and recreation.

In the decade from 1980 to 1990 there were only programs for deaf-blind children in Argentina and Brazil, and there were no services, programs or interpreters for adults at all. Families often found closed doors to Education or Rehabilitation services for their relatives In 1992, educative programmes in Latin American countries working with deaf-blind children began having support from INGO s ( Non Goverment Organisations) such as : Hilton Perkins SENSE International Christopher Blind Mission POSCAL

HP - gives economic resources, assistance for families and educational programs.

SI - gives support to educational programs in Bolivia Uruguay and Brazil

CBM - gives economical and assistance resources

POSCAL At the fifth Hellen Keller World Conference, in 1993 in Italy, Yolanda de RodrĄguez, a Colombian deaf-blind woman, presented a project to FSDB (Swedish Federation of Deaf- blind) to support Latin American deaf-blind. People. POSCAL, "Program to Create Organizations of Deaf-blind in Latin America" started in 1995, with the Andean countries: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. The goal of the POSCAL project was to motivate deaf-blind people and offer the Latin American countries support to create and structure the deaf-blind Organizations in their countries to work as a group to increase the quality of life of deaf-blind people, through training courses, seminars and conferences that help countries learn from each other. POSCAL try to use all manner of communication to bring people together, through letters, e-mail and the telephone, through interpreters or technical aids which are important for the achievement of cultural activities, social, sports and recreation activities. These first Andean countries, started their work with the assistance and economic resources from FSDB (Swedish Federation for deaf-blind), and SHIA ( Swedish Handicapped Aid Agency) and through the. POSCAL project, these countries grew every year with better results. While Latin American deaf-blind people attended meetings and Seminars once or twice a year, they had the opportunity to share ideas, experiences and also to plan the development of the organisations of each country, creating leaders, who seemed shy at first, and with the passing of time feel more secure to manage their own organisation with good results.

Those meetings also allow the leaders take advantage of all they can take into account to improve their organizations.

The Swedish Government through the POSCAL project, gave the Andean countries a computer with Braille display, with training in how to use them. That support has given to the leaders in each country, a work tool and the means to communicate with many different people.

Three years later, with the help of ONCE ULAC, the unity of ten more Latin American countries was possible. ONCE Spanish Organisation of National Blind ULAC Union of Latin American Blind .

Once again, the Swedish government through FSDB and SHIA, helped giving all the countries that belong to Poscal the "Loops" that are technical amplification aids for people with hearing remnant. These have been very useful in meetings, assemblies or social events.

In 1997, With the help of the following Oranizations: FENASCOL, National Federation of Colombian Deaf, the BID, International Development Bank and "Universidad del Valle", a Colombian University and the Interpreters Agency in Sweden, through POSCAL project, were trained the first interpreters for deaf and guide-interpreters for deaf-blind. Colombia is the only Latin American country with qualified Interpreters for deaf-blind people The interpreters have been an important aid in communication and connection to society.

POSCAL and FENASCOL started working together from the beginning of the project, to develop plans for training courses to encourage the growth and development of deaf-blind people in Latin America. POSCAL also developed training courses for Empiric Guide Interpreter which started in 1999, with the POSCAL countries. The participants were relatives and friends of the deaf-blind; there were some who came from different regions of each country for a better coverage of information and services. The goal of this important action was to support the reality that the governments don't pay the Interpreters Service for deaf- blind people as occurs in some developed countries. The idea was to teach the participants, issues as deafblindness, communication systems and aids, community organization, interpretation guide Interpreters role, ethical aspects, orientation and mobility and visual description techniques. The "students" agreed with the organisation to continue working as guide Interpreters for the deaf-blind members. The president participant of the association in each country, developed two workshops during the training in which he or she presented the association structure, history and what deafblindness meant for him or her.

With the continued opportunity of participation in Seminars the countries that belong to POSCAL have been working together as a group and in 1999, they founded the Deafblind Latin Amenican Council. .

Thanks to the POSCAL s and FENASCOL s work during 2 years, and the Association for the International Co-operation of Swedish Impairment organisation "SHIA", selected SURCOE, Deafblind Association of Colombia, was selected as the first Association in Latinamerica with the benefit of the training for the strengthening and organization of its Association giving its members a basic information that assume an -identity and representation with the deafblind people . The responsibility SURCOE has with FSDB and SHIA, is to finish the above mentioned project with positive results, as a condition to continue and extend the training to the other POSCAL Countries. The goal in this training is to make associations stronger, larger and more effective in their co-operative work between these countries. It is important to keep alliances with the government and society giving deaf-blind people the same rights and duties, and not stepping back from this process of participative democracy. Even though to make this participation strong and efficient it requires a strengthening process in associations to be represented throughout the whole country.

The idea of the training is to teach basic concepts in administration of associations, how a general assembly has to be organized, and functions of the board of directors.

The training has a first step, where the organizers give information on basic concepts of administration of associations, the mission, vision and objectives and the differences between associations and other Identities, and the organic structure of the associations. The second step is about the meaning of the General Assembly, of members, rights and duties and the organization of it. Finally, the third step, is about the board of directors, the functions of each member, who can be the representatives, their responsibilities, power of decisions and how to work with autonomy with the Assemblies.

The Hellen Keller World Conference, the most important event for deaf- blind which takes place every four years, was held in 1997 in Paipa, a small picturesque town in Colombia, close to Bogot , the Capital. It was the first time that an Hispanic country had the opportunity to join together the deaf-blind of the world. Colombia feels proud of having the opportunity to be the host in that important event.

The title for this Conference was "Right and Services for Deaf- blind in accordance with the Standard Rules for the United Nations".

During the Conference a committee of deaf-blind people with great experience in organizations, met, to think about the possibility of having a World Independent Organization of Deaf-blind. After the participants took part in this, everybody agreed to the possibility. That was how the World Federation of Deaf-blind was created, being independent from the World Union of Blind, and World Federation of Deaf. In addition, a provisional committee to start drawing-up the statutes was approved. That was a very important step for Deaf-blind people in the world.

Before this Conference, the Latin American Deaf-Blind people had a meeting in which the statutes and the manner they would finally be drawn-up for our Latin American Federation of Deaf Blind was discussed, with the nomination of members to the Board of Directors.

These are examples of the Co-operation between countries, the union of all Latin American countries fighting against the same problems and working together to solve them. All the members have to work according to the statutes, and being a big group of people we can ask for assistance until the Federation becomes strong enough to offer opportunities to others. It is difficult to have instant results. With individual associations we spend a lot of time only in one country. Co-operation is important to reach the ideals of a group making it stronger. The way people take joint decisions, the results should be much better than if it is only one person. Any way, we have to work harder to ensure that we are going to have a good future for all of us.

THANK YOU.