Hello, I'm a white woman with blonde hair. I'm wearing glasses and wearing all black.
My name is Dr. Darlene Zangara. I am the executive director for the Minnesota Commission of the Deaf, DeafBlind and Hard of Hearing. This is a special message for our DeafBlind communities in Minnesota. This message is in both ASL and English.
For those who don’t know me, I have worked for the Commission for almost four years. I am Deaf and I was raised in a Deaf family and Deaf community in Ohio. I started working with our communities when I was 13-years-old. I often volunteered to interpret for a lifelong DeafBlind family friend at a deaf club where I spent all my weekends growing up.
After I completed my education at Gallaudet, I dedicated my life’s work to Deaf, DeafBlind and Hard of Hearing communities. I have broad experience with DeafBlind communities, including
1. Interpreted for DeafBlind individuals as a Deaf Interpreter & provided counseling as a therapist
2. Participated and volunteered on DeafBlind organization, task forces, committees, and events, particularly in Ohio
3. Offered services to the American Association of the Deaf-Blind (AADB) and Helen Keller Nation Center (HKNC) in the past
I have an incredible team at the Commission. Our team members are committed to our communities as well and come with unique training and experiences.
The Commission’s mission is to advocate for communication access and equal opportunity with the 20% of Minnesotans who are deaf, deafblind, and hard of hearing. We work with the Governor’s office, legislature, state agencies, and judicial system to create lasting policy change on better quality of life for all of us.
Examples of our recent work for and with the DeafBlind community are:
1. Overseeing the DeafBlind Children Study
2. Advocating for legislation to benefit DeafBlind Minnesotans.
3. Advocating for advancement of emergency communications.
4. Governor appointed DeafBlind members for our board
5. Hosting DeafBlind focus group and DeafBlind town hall
6. Hired DeafBlind staff and contractors
You are important to us. You are a big part of our work in Minnesota. We work very hard to recognize our diverse communities. We respect different life experiences and varying degrees of vision loss and hearing loss. We know DeafBlind is a spectrum, and the community is not one size fits all.
The Commission has a diverse audience. To be accessible to all, we rely on the following:
Audio: An example of audio is voiceover in video.
Text: Examples of text include transcripts, descriptive transcripts, image descriptions, closed captions, open captions, etc.
Visual: Examples of visual is sign language in videos, personal descriptions, supporting images or graphics with descriptions, strong color contrast, etc.
All of these are tools we consider as we create information to share with you and how we share the information.
We want to hear from you. Please contact me or my team members any time if you have ideas, comments, or concerns. We learn from our community members every day and we appreciate receiving feedback. Thank you.
Contact Darlene at darlene.g.zangara@state.mn.us.
Credits
Featuring Dr. Darlene G. Zangara, Executive Director. The Minnesota Commission of the Deaf, DeafBlind & Hard of Hearing thanks:
Daisy Jo Shuda for voiceover.
Keystone Interpreting Solutions for film production.