NUNAVUT
Hearing-impaired people in six communities will get face-to-face communication with their peers and family after an investment has allowed a dedicated bandwidth for video phones on the satellite.
Arviat, Baker Lake, Rankin Inlet, Iqaluit, Pond Inlet and Arctic Bay will be part of a pilot project to test videoconferencing equipment, aimed at helping facilitate communication for the deaf in the territory, helped by Inuit Sign Language interpreters on both ends.
A partnership between the territorial and federal governments, the Nunavut Broadband Development Corporation and the Canadian Deafness Research and Training Institute is making the project possible.
The federal government is investing more than $21.6 million towards this project, with an additional $500,000 from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. The territorial government is providing $500,000 and NBDC more than $18.5 million.
"They will be able to communicate with their friends and family throughout Nunavut," said Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq.
The video phones will be loaned to deaf people in each of the six communities. The system has the same basic principal as Skype except it has dedicated increased bandwidth on the satellite, explained James MacDougall of the training institute.
MacDougall, who has been involved in the territorial-government-sponsored project to document Inuit Sign Language, will have a video phone in Montreal to communicate with the participants.
A video phone will also be located in Ottawa. He added the communities were partly chosen on the number of active participants he has in the Inuit Sign Language project.
In total, he has as many as 50 people, both non-hearing-impaired and deaf, participating in the language project.
"Give the relatively small numbers of deaf people who use sign language and given the distances between communities, it is not realistic to have dedicated interpreters in every community at all times," he stated via e-mail. "Video-remote interpretation can fill this gap. For example, a deaf person can be assisted in communicating with a health professional in Pangnirtung by using a sign language interpreter connected by video phone in Rankin Inlet."
They know the technology works, he stated, now, they need to get additional resources at the community level. Because the per minute cost of satellite communication by video phone is "very high," he added long-term funding will be needed to make the technology viable.
