On 12 & 13 January Danish Sign Language Interpreters attended the two day training in Copenhagen on 'Interpreting from and into English as a third language'. CFD asked me to organize this training for their staff interpreters. In June 2017 the interpreters will attend part II of the training.

Why is it important for sign language interpreters working at international conferences to join AIIC? As sign language interpreters we work alongside and in cooperation with our colleagues, spoken language interpreters. We have been lobbying to have our profession equally recognized as spoken language interpreters. Which means that when in the same conference setting we are receiving the same technical and professional support in order to carry out our tasks, as well as receiving equal pay. 

On 28 September 2016 MEP Helga Stevens is hosting a unique conference in the European Parliament: 'Multilingualism and equal rights in the EU: the role of sign languages'. For the first time in history the European Parliament will have all 24 spoken languages and 31 sign languages present.

The European Master in Sign Language Interpreting (EUMASLI) Team is very pleased to announce that EUMASLI, the European Master in Sign Language Interpreting, will be offered again from January 2017.

Applications for EUMASLI 3 are now open. The deadline is 30 September 2016.

Since 2000 I have been conducting research on the status of Sign Language Interpreting in Europe. The results of this research are published, and the latest one was in 2012.

Now it is the year again to gather the new data on the status of our profession. Unfortunately I have not been able to locate sign language interpreters yet in all member states of the Council of Europe. I am still looking for contacts in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Macedonia, Moldova and Slovakia.

Today was a historic moment with the UK Prime Minister Cameron announcing via a press conference that he is stepping down as a consequence of the UK voters deciding on leaving the EU. Watch our colleagues interpret his press conference in BSL and NGT.

Congrestolken in Amsterdam organized a great team of spoken and sign language interpreters during the COSAC meetings in The Hague. It was a wonderful experience of working with spoken language interpreters into and from the 24 official EU languages together with International Sign interpretation. 

At the EYE event in Strasbourg on 20 May 2016 a special meeting was organized by the interpreting recruiting and programming department of the European Parliament. At the meeting Maya de Wit & Oliver Pouliot presented a glimpse into the world of sign language interpreting to the spoken language interpreters working at the event.

International Sign (IS) is widely used among deaf people and interpreters at international events, but what exactly is it, what are its linguistic features, where does its lexicon come from, and how is it used at interpreted events? This groundbreaking collection is the first volume to provide answers to these questions.