India country report

Our association was established in 2008: ISLIA. It was the idea of deaf persons to establish an interpreter association. They conceived this idea by traveling abroad and seeing other interpreter associations in other countries.

Currently there are 7 deaf board members and 5 hearing. We have 95 members and are all certified. In India we have many spoken languages and many of the sign language interpreters know at least 3 or 4 languages.

Since 2001 we have a one year training course for sign langauge interpreters in six different place in India. We have three different levels from A - C. C is the highest level and equivalent to the one year training. We now have 9 interpreters at C level and 42 at B level and 320 at A level.

The All India Federartion of the Deaf (AIFD) is affiliated with WFD and we have a signed agreement with AIFD on our joint cooperation.