Four videos of presentations by Dr Liisa Kauppinen have been released for public access

Through the support of an internal award from the ADVANCE RIT through the National Science Foundation, Dr. Liisa Kauppinen, former president of the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) was invited to visit the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) during 14-17 April, 2014. She presented on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and WFD among other topics to a wide variety of groups all week.

Kauppenin_Apr17_6073

© 2014 NTID/RIT All Rights Reserved

Dr. Kauppinen received the prestigious 2013 United Nations Human Rights Prize in December 2013 for her work on rights of deaf people, women and women with disabilities. Being the first deaf woman to be selected among distinguished recipients, Dr. Liisa Kauppinen is also the first individual to receive such an award from Nordic countries. Dr. Kauppinen was also the first deaf female president serving the WFD for over 35 years and was also the first deaf female Executive Director at the Finnish Association of the Deaf. She has promoted the rights of both deaf women and deaf men through cooperation with other human rights activists, representatives of governments and international non-governmental organisations in Africa, Central Asia, South East Asia, and Russia.

The four videos are captioned, voice-interpreted and signed. Dr. Kauppinen’s presentations at NTID are, in order:

  • WFD Presentation: Language Rights
  • UNCRPD Presentation
  • Women’s Reception Presentation: Personal Stories about My Life and Work, and
  • A rare interview with Dr. Liisa Kauppinen at the NTID Dyer Arts Center.

They are released for public dissemination at the local, national, and international levels (http://www.ntid.rit.edu/liisa-kauppinen).

In the spirit of Dr. Liisa Kauppinen¹s tireless advocacy for human rights, we encourage you to donate to the WFD to support our work for deaf women and children, a very underserved minority group in both developing and developed countries.

Special thanks must go to the NTID/RIT for their support to make Dr. Kauppinen’s presentations available online.