Hello everyone – from Italy or from around the world.

Our new group, “LIS Now”, have been working intensively.

We have seen that some of you think that our silence means a suspension of the original plans;

in reality, we don’t want this. We have persisted because our objective is to see LIS officially recognized by law.

Regarding this, it’s clear in our work there’s much patience.

Patience, why? Because we do not all live in the same city – there’s those living in Rome, Florence, Turin, and in Bologna.

This means working at a distance, through computers with webcams. Technology today doesn’t necessarily make it easier for us to communicate with each other, because there are also difficulties. For example the quality of the video images is sometimes poor, each video correspondent sometimes has problems, shutting down or showing resolution problems. Communicating in this way has become truly difficult. There may also be problems with the Internet connection. For this reason, we have lots of patience.

Anyway, we have finally agreed on the official dates of the protest: May 25, 26 and 27, three days.

On 25 May we will be in one place, but on 26 and 27 May we will be in a different place.

 

What are these two places?

On 25 May we will be at the Piazza dei Santi Apostoli. We will meet here. There will be a platform for various speakers, from politicians, artists, and so on. The objective is to make LIS visible.

The assembly will be from the morning, at 10am, to the evening, at 8pm, the time at which the first day of the protest will end.

 

On the following day, 26 May, we will meet in the afternoon at Piazza Montecitorio, the location of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. This was the very place where LIS was incorrectly named as LMG (manual gestural communication) in the text of the proposed bill that has been horribly modified by the legislature. This is what we are protesting against – we will bring banners and stay here from 2pm to 8pm. We will return in the same place in the morning of 27 May, from 8am to 2pm.

 

Regarding the information I’ve given to you, I want to give sincere thanks to other groups who have made our work possible.

The first is the National ENS, which has seen the proposals arise from the deaf community and has agreed, offering strong support to the working group. Thank you! It’s clear that the ENS is you, deaf Italians.

Also, the Roman provincial ENS has given us its willingness to offer a location where we can physically meet and organize work. Thank you!

I will now mention the Committee of Young Deaf Italians, with whom we have had constant communication and support in organization; this relationship is clearly the reason of our satisfaction. Thank you!

There is also the SILIS group of Rome, which has immediately given us its availability to make groups and participate in our work. This coordination is what we truly needed. Thank you!

Then, there is the ANIOS association, with its group of interpreters readily available to participate and to offer us their interpreting services for free during the entire period of the protests. To this we give sincere thanks.

We have, finally, the organization Il Treno, which has from the start made their team available for whatever is needed.

I have expressed these thanks because there are many organizations that are on our side and have given us security. Without their support, we would be able to go on, but with many difficulties and less chance for success. It’s clear, the presence of these organizations have shown us the objective for the approval of LIS is a common goal for all of us.

 

Now I want to tell you another thing. It is not possible to set up camps in the protest locations. If you find other accommodations or campground, that is fine. But within the Piazza dei Santi Apostoli and the Piazza Montecitorio, it is forbidden.

Also, either today or tomorrow morning, there will be a new official site, www.lissubito.com. Within this site you will find all of the information regarding the specifications of LIS and our request for immediate recognition of this language. You can see the protest program, any updates and the ways you may contact us. You will find everything here. Thank you, and see you very soon. Arrivederci!