DEAF citizens have requested that signing interpreters be present at the upcoming national political debates so that deaf persons may understand the issues involved in the upcoming election.

Organisers of the debates are considering the request and have asked representatives of the deaf community to assist them in providing the interpreters if given the go-ahead, the Observer was told yesterday.

A group called Deaf Sports Jamaica (DSJ), in a release from its public relations officer Peter Kavanaugh yesterday, made an appeal on behalf of the deaf to the Media Association of Jamaica and the television stations airing the debates to have the interpreters present.

“The deaf and hard of hearing would like to be able to understand the issues being articulated by the two parties in question,” Kavanaugh said in the release.

“For more than 80 years the deaf have been very marginalised in this country and so believe that this would be a very important step in removing some of the inequity that has long been perpetuated, beside every person if allowed can make a positive contribution to national development,” he added.

Kavanaugh told the Observer that chairman of the Jamaica Debates Commission Gary Allen, in a response by e-mail, said that the matter had been discussed in a technical meeting of the commission yesterday. Kavanaugh said Allen asked if the DSJ could assist in providing the interpreters, a request he said the DSJ was ready to meet.

Meanwhile, Kavanaugh said he was encouraged by the fact that interpreters were present at both the Jamaica Labour Party’s mass meeting in Mandeville last Sunday and the People’s National Party’s meeting in Cross Roads, Kingston last Saturday. He said an estimated 10 per cent of the population are affected with some degree of hearing loss.

Established in 2010, DSJ is a non-profit organisation focusing mainly on promoting sporting activities at within the schools for the deaf and also the wider deaf community. Its aim is to encourage improved social integration of deaf and hard of hearing persons and to prevent and reduce incidents of violence and crime.