When life throws lemons, get out the cookbook

4 December 2015

For immediate release.

When life throws lemons, get out the cookbook

According to Deaf Action Chair Kim Robinson, the best way to deal with lemons being thrown when on a Human Rights journey is to get out the recipe book and start baking.

Robinson spoke on a leadership panel for CCS Disability Action staff in Auckland commemorating International Day for People with Disabilities on 3 December 2015. The theme for this year was Inclusion matters: access and empowerment of people of all abilities.

After growing up in Blenheim and attending secondary school in Christchurch, including a year boarding at van Asch Deaf Education Centre in Christchurch, Robinson travelled to Colorado, USA to spend a year at an American high school as part of the AFS Exchange programme. Little did he know that the programme would be both eye-opening and life-changing: access to education in the US was so much easier. Suddenly, he understood

how empowering it was to have access to sign language and technology.

After experiencing ‘access to everything,’ returning to New Zealand was ‘like going into a prison,’ he recalls. The lack of communication access for Deaf New Zealanders drove him to begin his human rights activism in earnest. Working together with another Deaf person, he spent seven years fighting for the establishment of a telephone relay service in New Zealand, working closely with the Human Rights Commission. During this time, many lemons were thrown by corporations and individuals wanting to stop the case; Robinson’s team fought with determination for seven years, and finally won in 2002.

Robinson has continued to be very active in promoting human rights for all people, particularly Deaf people. Still, he advises that the Human Rights Commission should always be a last resort, and underlined the importance of finding the right ‘recipe’ for addressing specific breaches of human rights.

Robinson is now the Chair of Deaf Action, a new Deaf-led organisation committed to advancing the human rights of Deaf people in New Zealand. Robinson says it is exciting to be part of a new organisation, and will not shy away from any lemons that might come his way—he’ll just pull out his recipe book.

Ends.

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