We, deafblind, people from different countries of the world, here all together at the 7th World Helen Keller Conference in Auckland, New Zealand, from the 7th to 10th October 2001, and we manifest the following:

RESOLUTIONS

THAT, we, deafblind people, have special needs that are different to any other needs from other disability, we claim that deafblindness is a unique disability that results from a combination of a severe loss of hearing and vision, which means that we are the only group of disabled people that have this dual impairment, that is to say, that not any other disabled person has available the visual or the hearing sense. Therefore, we call upon governments of each country to acknowledge our disability as a unique one, as a whole, and to develop a process to find an official definition of deafblindness in those countries were there is not one yet. It is important that this definition is functional.

THAT, governments should enforce rules so that a good diagnoses is carried out in public and private hospitals and to avoid diagnosing a deafblind child or an adult as mentally retarded, which happens very often specially with congenital deafblind children.

THAT, each deafblind person, is above all a person and then is deafblind, therefore we have the same rights as any other citizen, and we call upon the government of every country to acknowledge our rights and to take us into account when developing national health and social services programmes for disabled people.

THAT, communication with people or with the environment is one of our greatest problems because of our dual sensory loss, we can communicate using different methods and we claim the right to learn these methods and communicate with others as any individual. And that this methods (sign language, manual alphabet, etc) are included in the curriculum of professional in the field of education. Communication is the key to our access to any education and rehabilitation programme and to our social integration.

THAT, there are still many countries in the world where deafblindness is unknown and that do not have the necessary services for deafblind people or where these services are not enough. Therefore we claim upon governments of each country to develop these services together with other private and public institutions, gathering information about services for deafblind people from those countries where deafblindnes is acknowledged and there are services for deafblind people. In this sense it is very important to develop a screening and identification programme for deafblind people and a census of the population to be carried out so as to know the global needs of the population of all ages and plan the necessary services.

THAT, the basic services we, deafblind people, need are the following:

•     - early intervention and stimulation (0- 6 years).
•     - education programmes for deafblind children at school age with the necessary adaptations.
•     Offering schooling in specific classrooms, mainstream education or other education programmes, depending on the individual needs of each deafblind child.
•     - rehabilitation services.
•     - Access to technology and adapted technology as means to access information and communication.
•     - pre- vocational, vocational training and access to employment.
•     - counselling and support to the families
•     - a good interpreter service
•     - training of specialised professionals

THAT, we, deafblind people, have potential and resources greater than generally thought of, so we claim the right, not only to the services mentioned above, but we claim we should be taken into account when planning for the services for deafblind people.

THAT, we, deafblind people, are identified and feel deafblind, and we know we can make things on our own, therefore we claim upon every government to support deafblind people that want to create their own association, facilitating the human, material and financial resources so as to meet their objectives.

THAT, we, deafblind people, are conscious that we are a very diverse and small group and we do not get to this condition the same way, and therefore we manifest that our unity above diversity is very important for our associative movement, it is decisive to get our goals.

THAT, we, deafblind people participating in this conference, want to continue this World conference taking place and want the WFDB to assume its organisation. We manifest our desire that from the moment the WFDB is created to be our voice and the advocate of our rights, unity and identity at world level. We also manifest our desire of the WFDB to maintain an excellent collaboration with other disabled organisations, specially with the DbI, Woold Blind Union and World Federation of the Deaf, and that it represents us in international organisms such as the United Nations, World Health Organisaion and others.