A Deaf couple, both born into Deaf families, have plans to climb Mount Everest in the spring of 2023. They met as teenagers and when they began their careers, they began serious mountain climbing. Their first big climb happened in 2015, at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, a dormant volcano in Tanzania. They also climbed mountains in South America, Mexico and the French Alps, then went on to the Aconcagua in the Andes mountains of Argentina and climbed Mt. Denali in Alaska. Now they want to climb the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest.

A new position paper by World Federation of the Deaf, WFD states that “Deaf people and deaf communities must stand at the forefront of all activities related to sign languages”. It goes on to say that Deaf people must be given the opportunity to teach their own sign languages, their national sign languages. WFD explains that signing Deaf people have everyday lived experience with the language. Languages evolve continually and the people who use it everyday as their first language are most current in practice.

A Chief in Zambezi donated farmland to the Deaf community to support development. The Zambia National Association of the Deaf is now handling the property where Deaf people work to become self reliant by trying out different ways to farm and overcome discrmination from people who think Deaf people are witches, diseased and contagious, lazy and unskilled. They use agroforestry – mixing trees and food plants together – and use biochar – burned plants and trees as fertilizer with leaves from particular trees. As more Deaf Zambians learn how to farm, more opportunities open up for independent living.

Dr. Karina Muñoz Vilugrón, from the Institute of Pedagogical Specialties of the Puerto Montt Campus of the Austral University of Chile is doing research on the “Characteristics of the educational experiences of Deaf people for the construction of an inclusive education proposal based on Deaf epistemologies”. The project will be under Fondecyt of Initiation in Research 2023 of the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) in Santiago. They hope it will result in inclusive education proposal, empower the Deaf community, a guide book for teacher training, and an e-book with life stories to use in classrooms with Deaf students.

In Caracas, Venezuela, the jury for the second season of “La Voz Chile” was impressed with Jeremy Romero, a Venezuelan migrant who sang the theme Colors, while interpreting it through sign language. The 32-year-old singer appeared at a Blind Audition and at the end of the presentation, chose to be part of Beto Cuevas’ work group, who assured that he would become his coach for life. Primera Edición Colombia reported that Romero wanted to pay tribute to his Deaf friends and promote inclusion of Deaf people.