26 Jun 2017 - ENAD Staff Member

Dr. Liisa Kauppinen, the former president of the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), a federation that brings together associations of the deaf from 133 countries, was [on a working visit to the ENAD] in Ethiopia in November 2015. She was accompanied by Ms. Cecilia Hanhikoski from the youth section of the Finnish Association of the Deaf (FAD) and Ms. Euphrasia Mbewe from Zambia who is a frequent visitor to the ENAD as a trainer.

Dr. Kauppinen is not new to Ethiopia. She has been to Ethiopia more than once in the past. She had come before to oversee the preparations for the Second Eastern and Southern African Sign Language Seminar in 1990 and later in April 1991 during the seminar. What made her current visit to Ethiopia so unique for the ENAD was because, she came during the week when the ENAD was holding its annual general assembly for the Ethiopian budget year ended in June 2015 (2007 EC). She attended the two-day assembly that took place on 28-29 November 2015. This gave our members an opportunity to see and meet and get first hand advice from a world renown advocate for the rights of the deaf, whose work has been recognized by the United Nations by awarding her with the 2013 United Nations Human Rights Award Prize.

The ENAD would like to thank Dr. Kauppinen for being a staunch supporter and friend of the deaf in Ethiopia, in Africa and all over the world. Thanks to her unstinted efforts, a lot of good has happened to the deaf and particularly the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) by the United Nations General Assembly. The ENAD is very happy to note that the Ethiopian Government has ratified the CRPD which we hope will bring meaningful changes on the lives of the deaf in the country.