Te Mahinga Ora sat down with Janet Stokes, tutor co-lead at Ko Taku Reo Deaf Education NZ, to learn more about her role and her pioneering mahi translating the Specialist Residential Schools’ collective agreement into New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL).
Ko Taku Reo is New Zealand’s national Deaf education service, providing both residential schooling options and individual tutoring for Deaf tamariki who go to mainstream schools.
That’s where Janet Stokes and her team come in. As a tutor co-lead based in Christchurch, Janet travels across the South Island to work with Deaf students, their classes and whānau.
The tutoring is as much about improving sign skills as it is about exploring Deaf culture and becoming a confident communicator in whatever language a student chooses.
Janet also supports and coordinates a team of tutors who work in Christchurch, Dunedin, and Invercargill.
On top of her busy day job, Janet has been a PSA delegate for nearly 20 years.
“The delegate at the time noticed that I was a strong advocate and was always asking the hard questions,” she said.
NO LEG TO STAND ON IN THOSE DAYS
Janet’s path into teaching NZSL was far from easy. She went into education training straight after school, studying the Primary Diploma of Teaching in Wellington.
“I did this for two years, and then actually failed my second-year music course. The Wellington College of Education at the time refused to allow me into the third unless I passed music,” Janet said.
“I am fully Deaf and cannot hear at all, and this was all prior to the Human Rights Act legislation so I had no leg to stand on at the time.
“I ended up finishing my Bachelor of Arts Degree (Major in Education) at Victoria University over the next two years.
“At the time, those subjects were compulsory and there was no flexibility or access to NZSL interpreters for me. I had to find the funding for one interpreter for a couple of my lectures at university – the rest of the time I had to survive on reading material only.”
After study, Janet took up a post as a language assistant at Van Asch Deaf Education Centre (which has since merged with Kelson Deaf Education Centre into Ko Taku Reo).
A HUGE MILESTONE FOR US
Janet first started advocating for the Specialist Residential Schools’ collective agreement to be translated into NZSL in 2022.
Fluent in both English and NZSL, Janet found that one of her primary tasks was interpreting the collective agreement for staff whose first language was NZSL.
“That was when we had very few Deaf staff here.
“Eventually over time, more Deaf staff became members, and many of them struggled to understand the collective so I was spending a lot of my time translating for them as issues arose.
“I advocated in bargaining for it to be fully translated because we had an obligation to make sure that the collective, a legal document, is accessible for those members.”
Janet says there was a huge positive reaction to the collective agreement being made available in NZSL.
“Over half of our members are Deaf and to have this accessible is groundbreaking.
“It is only because I am the first Deaf person in New Zealand on a bargaining team that this has happened.
“There is no other collective agreement by any other union here or worldwide that is fully translated into a sign language, and I am proud of that.”
