Pair reveal glimpse of life in the silent world of the deaf

You are in an emergency and frantically dial 112 on your mobile phone but being deaf, you are unable to communicate. Fortunately, Annabelle Cauchi and Steven Mulvaney have never found themselves in such a situation but dread to think what would happen if there was no hearing person to turn to. “There should be a text messaging service we can use,” Ms Cauchi suggests. “This would also be of benefit to those who have speech difficulties.” “A video phone service that links to a 24-hour sign language interpreter would be of infinite use,” Mr Mulvaney adds. “The service could also be connected to a GPS [global positioning system] that would automatically register our location. All we would have to do is outline the nature of the emergency. “Many other countries have this system in place. Deaf people are able to save the lives of hearing people,” he says. On their travels abroad, both Ms Cauchi and Mr Mulvaney were impressed with the services in place allowing deaf people a fuller degree of integration, experiences which, invariably, only served to throw into relief the extent to which Malta lags behind. Sitting side by side, Mr Mulvaney and Ms Cauchi share their dream of living in a...