FIFTH AUSTRALIAN DEAFBLIND CONFERENCE 8 APRIL 2000
                     Jan & Graham Scahill

We would like to thank DBA, ADBC, and those of you on the WADBA committee here in Western Australia for inviting us to take part in this, the fifth National Deafblind Conference of Australia. We are delighted to have the privilege to take part in this very special event.
It is always a momentous occasion when deafblind and their sighted peers have the opportunity to work together to develop improved services that will give our deafblind people a greater opportunity to fulfil their aims and enrich their lifestyle.
It is for this reason that Deafblind N.Z. Incorporated made a bid over eighteen months ago to host the 7th Helen Keller World Conference, although we knew we had, what appeared to some, as insurmountable obstacles.
18 months on, and having received the go-ahead to host this renowned conference, along with the First General Assembly of the World Federation of the Deafblind, which was granted to us in January 1999, we are making good progress, though we still have some hurdles to jump but we know that we must achieve this if we are going to fulfil our theme - What it Means To Be Deafblind - Identity, Rights, Unity.

The conferences will commence on Sunday 7 October 2001 at the Waipuna Hotel and Conference Centre in Auckland, and will run till Friday the 12th.
There could be some who have not heard of the Helen Keller Conferences. These conference have been held approximately every four years.
The six Helen Keller World Conferences were in New York (1977),
Hanover, Germany (1980), Manama City, Bahrain (1983), Stockholm (1989), Italy (1993) and Colombia (1997). The three in Europe, therefore, were in Germany, Sweden and Italy.
This, the seventh will be the first in the Southern Hemisphere, and hopefully not the last.
The first three HKWC's were held under the auspices of the World Council for the Welfare of the Blind, which merged with the World Federation of the Blind about 1984 to form the World Blind Union.
On January 25 1999 we received the following message:

Dear Friend,
We write to you regarding your offer to host the next Helen Keller World Conference and the first general Assembly of the WFDB in order to officially announce the host country for both events.
As you already know, two national organisations offered themselves to host these events: Deafblind NZ Inc in New Zealand and CNSDB, Canadian National Society of the Deaf-Blind.
Both committees, the WBU Standing Committee on Deafblind Activities and the WFDB Committee in co-operation, have been carefully studying both offers and believe both organisations are very competent, have the necessary infrastructure to organise them and find both countries very interesting.
However, after a careful study and discussion among committee members of the two offers, both committees agreed that this time the host country is to be New Zealand and the  events held in the year 2001. The decision has not been an easy one since both organisations are found equally capable, but it has been made mainly on the basis that there has never been a HKWC held in that part of the world and it would give to the deafblind people from the Pacific area the publicity and the boost to open new services they just need at this stage.

We want to thank both organisations for all your efforts and interest, and wish you good luck for the future work.
Yours sincerely,
Stig Ohlson Chairman WFDB Daniel Alvarez Reyes Chairman of WBU Standing Committee on Deafblind Activities

The World Federation of the Deafblind is a special organisation which will be made up of deafblind organisations throughout the world. Many countries have already applied to join but there is no official membership at this time, and will not be so until the first General Assembly. At present Stig Ohlson of Sweden is the acting President, and will stand until the first General Assembly in October 2001. A charter was drawn up and presented at the sixth HKWC and this will be put forward at the first General Assembly in October 2001.
Graham and I have brought some papers with us, and these will include information on the HKWC along with the first notification and a questionnaire which you can fill in if you wish, this would put your name on the mailing list for immediate information.
We also have some copies of the WFDB's charter, and these papers are in both large print and braille.
Details of the registration fee have just been finalised, and this will appear shortly on our web site, www.deafblind.org.nz and will be given in full detail along with accommodation in the second notification which will be going to print shortly, but if anyone wants to know about the fees and costings of the conference, come and see Graham and I and we can give you some further information.
The official language of the conference will be English, with Spanish as the secondary language. The only interpreters that will be available will be those on stage, therefore those requiring interpreters will need to bring their own. We will have a supporting group of SSP's - special support people, but more later.
Please remember though, We need your support in this project we have taken on. Both of these conferences, the HKWC and the WFDB are significant in the progress of economic, educational and social welfare for the deafblind community, wherever they may be. Therefore I trust we can all work together to achieve this goal for deafblind internationally, but especially for those of the South Pacific.
Thank you.