Dialogue meeting with the Ministry of Culture and Equality

Today the Løvemammaene had a dialogue meeting with Minister Odin Bohmann in the Ministry of Culture and Equality, which is responsible for language and the Language Act in Norway. We were there to talk about sign language/ASK (alternative and supplementary communication). Elin Gunnarsson, deputy leader of our organisation, introduced the starting point for the dialogue meeting and the Løvemammaene's impatience regarding getting ASK into the language act. She then passed the floor on to our ASK expert Marianne Grav Semner, who sits on the Løvemammaene's kindergarten and school committee.

Marianne went thoroughly into the legislation, previous Parliamentary resolutions and preparatory work for the legislation. She told about her 21-year-old daughter, who only speaks with symbols via an eye-controlled PC, who got a grade 6 on an oral science exam thanks to the fact that, over many years, Marianne has built up her language book and voice-controlled PC with what she needed to communicate on an equal footing with others. Unfortunately, far too many of today's children and young people are deprived of this opportunity, precisely because sign language/ASK is not a right. Among other things, we told the minister about our experiences of having children who use sign language, but who do not get the opportunity to learn English at school because they do not have this right. We also shared our concerns about children and young people's lack of opportunities to talk about bullying, violence and sexual abuse when they do not have the right to a language.

We experienced an accommodating state secretary who both wants and works to ensure our children and young people have a language. We spent a lot of time in the meeting discussing what is needed for sign language/ASK to become a right, and how this can be implemented in the various pieces of legislation this will concern. We hope that in the long run this will lead to a linguistic future for our lion children.

The Løvemammaen thank you for a constructive and good meeting, and look forward to further cooperation on children and young people's right to language.