Workshop Title:
“Building Language Justice: An Open Access International Professional Development Series for Sign Language Interpreters”
Workshop Description:
(View in ASL – Click here)
Deaf leaders in the Global South are increasingly positioned to lead sustainable educational development — yet the interpreters who support their work often lack access to formal training. This gap undermines language justice and limits Deaf communities’ full participation in educational and civic life.
To address this need, we developed a nine-month international professional development series for Deaf and hearing sign language interpreters, created and facilitated by a Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and hearing interpreter team. Our pilot cohort of 26 interpreters from Ethiopia, Malawi, Rwanda, and the United States engaged in synchronous and asynchronous learning and attended the African Federation of Sign Language Interpreters conference in Kigali, Rwanda.
The full curriculum will be released as an open-access resource, adaptable for interpreters worldwide — including those without access to formal training programs. We envision this work sparking transnational communities of practice that connect interpreters across borders in shared service to Deaf communities.
Join us to learn about the pilot program, our open-access curriculum release, and how this model can be adapted to advance language justice in your own context.
Educational Objectives:
Participants will be able to:
(1) Situate interpreter training within the larger global context in order to prepare current and future interpreters to work in a pluralistic society
(2) Conceptualize how interpreters-in-training within their regions can form international partnerships in aims to participate in transnational communities of practice
(3) De-center U.S.- and Eurocentric interpreter training approaches in order to better meet the needs of diverse interpreters and Deaf communities
(4) Reimagine how grassroots collaboration can support the interpreter pipeline and address global interpreter shortages
Bio:
Kyle Duarte is a sign language linguist, interpreter practitioner, and language access advocate based in Washington, DC. He earned a PhD in France, where his research examined the phonetic structure of signed languages through a computational linguistics lens. His scholarly background informs a practice deeply rooted in the linguistic and cultural complexity of signed language communities.
Kyle is the founder of The Kyle Duarte Company, a Washington, DC-based language services firm specializing in sign language interpreting and real-time captioning for academic and research clients. He holds BEI Master and NIC certifications and brings extensive experience interpreting in international contexts and supporting Deaf professionals across a range of settings.
Gloshanda Lawyer, PhD, is a community-based Disability + Language Justice practitioner. She does research, workshops, trainings, and consultations at the community, national, and international levels. Her research focuses on issues of multilingual acquisition and interpreting, social justice, colonization, Deaf Education and Deaf Studies with emphasis on analyzing systems of power.
She advocates for multilingualism for Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, and Hard of Hearing populations in the United States and the Global South. She has been a PK-12 Deaf educator, early interventionist, an assistant professor of Deaf Education, Deaf Studies, Interpreter Education, and a multilingual/multimodal interpreter.
Gloshanda is the founder of COCOA Language, Advocacy and Consulting LLC and co-founder/co-researcher at Myers & Lawyer.
Razaq Fakir is an accredited International Sign interpreter, translator, and professional language development instructor dividing his time between Johannesburg, South Africa, and Valencia, Spain. He is affiliated with Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, where he is engaged in Sign Language Interpreter research under the EUMASLI program exploring the efficacy and practicality of using IS as a language of academic instruction.
His career spans deaf education, academia, and program leadership, and leading multilingual language initiatives aimed at uplifting deaf professionals and upskilling national sign language interpreters in best practices of interpreting.
Razaq founded Oorbrug OU, a language services company based in Tallinn, Estonia, and is one third of the interpreter facilitators for Interpreters Lead, an initiative focused on training and professional development of interpreters from the global south.
RID CEUs Offered: .15
