OAD - Open letter to CAD скачать в хорошем качестве

OAD - Open letter to CAD

Image description and transcript: [A long wavy-haired white woman is signing. Captioning is in the video along with the OAD logo. ] Hello, I’m Veronica Bickle and I’m President of the Ontario Association of the Deaf (OAD). This is an open letter sent to the Canadian Association of the Deaf (CAD) from the OAD Board regarding the recent selection of their new Executive Director. We are concerned about this new Executive Director not being able to accurately represent Deaf people from across the country. As Deaf Canadians, we expect that our new leader will be someone with extensive lived Deaf experiences. It means it’s someone who have experienced life as a Deaf person, such as the challenges going through the educational system with accommodations or experiencing barriers as a Deaf person especially when looking for employment. We feel our new Executive Director do not have those lived Deaf experiences to be the face of Deaf Canadians. We are questioning the selection process that led CAD to appoint him. We are concerned about the lack of transparency with this selection process. For example, the job posting was not shared widely in the Deaf community to encourage as many Deaf people to apply. We are also aware that there had been applicants with lived Deaf experiences who were not chosen as the successful candidate. We have questions about the selection process. Did the hiring committee include stakeholders from outside the CAD Board to provide varying perspectives on who to hire for this important position? What were the criteria the hiring committee used to make their selection? For example, what is the new Executive Director’s experiences with being involved with various Deaf organizations across Canada? Bottom line: for years, CAD had been involved advocating for better employment opportunities for Deaf people, but they are not currently following this philosophy. With hiring this new Executive Director, they are giving us the message that Deaf people, who have had real lived Deaf experiences, are not capable of assuming important leadership roles. We are asking that the new Executive Director resign. We also ask that the CAD Board start a new selection process that is fair, inclusive and transparent to appoint another Executive Director. We are emphasizing the importance that during this new selection process, CAD needs to keep in mind that the successful candidate must be a person with significant and extensive lived Deaf experiences. We need an authentic leader to become the face of Deaf Canadians, a person who we can relate to and see our own experiences reflected back. Thank you.