Rona Lazo

Dynamic advocate and role model for the Deaf and women

Born in the Philippines, Rona acknowledges that cultural traditions have played an important role in her life. She attributes her strong feminist convictions to the role played by her mother in juggling cultural obligations with a need for autonomy and independence.

Always a spirited adventurer, Rona’s decision to go exploring at aged 6, led to a serious fall, as a result of which she lost her hearing. As an oral-deaf girl in mainstream schools she endured constant bullying and harassment from peers, but finding schools where Filipino Sign Language (FSL) was taught was a challenge. In time, developing Deaf identity and Deaf pride were part of acquiring fluency in FSL. Many leadership roles followed, representing her country at the World Federation of the Deaf, completing her degree while working as a dancer, and being recognised for sporting prowess.

Migrating to Australia in 1999, Rona added Auslan to her languages. Here, she embodies diversity and understands the cultures associated with each language, but she will not stand back and has a strong drive for equality.

Rona believes that learning Auslan is important for everybody, and that her role is to teach the hearing world to embrace and appreciate the skills that Deaf people have.

Early years and family history

I was born in the city of Muntinlupa, Metro Manila (Luzon) in the Philippines, on 25 January 1976. My mother comes from Visayas, a very small island where the Spanish first fleet arrived. There were a lot of people of mixed cultures on that island; Spanish, Philippines and mix of both. My father was from Ilocos. President Marcos was there when he was born!

My mum comes from Laoang, Northern Samar, Palapag (Visayas). My dad was from Ilocos Sun, San Vicente Vigan (Luzon). In the Philippines people speak three different languages, such as Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. My mum speaks Bisayas: “Waray-Waray” language. My dad speaks Luzon “ Tagalog” Language.

My dad’s mother (my grandmother) was kidnapped by my grandfather to marry her when she was around 19 or 20. She was kidnapped at the bridge while she was heading home from school.

My dad’s father (my grandfather) was a “guerilla” in a group from the Philippines in the early twentieth century. They were an army who fought the Japanese and other countries who wanted to invade the Philippines. (He worked with the man who would go on to become President Ramon Magsaysay.)

My dad was the president of the United Vendors Association. He organised a dance party in the community and invited all the vendors to bring their girlfriends and friends. There he met mum.

One day they went out to watch a movie called Leron Leron Sinta, which was a famous Filipino film that time. They did not know that it was almost midnight when dad brought mum back home. Her parents got angry and thought they had been having sex, so they kicked her out and did not allow her to return to the house. Instead, they told Dad to take him to his house. It was how they did thinks at that time in their culture.

Mum went to Manila because she wanted to see the city and moved secretly to live with my dad.

My parents met at my mum's island, and my father took her back to Manila so they could start their own family. According to my grandmother, that's what they did; my mother was expected to look after other members of my father's family. She was married very young, but that's what they did in those days. My mother and father came from very different cultures and this cultural problem was very significant.

My Mum was looking after the children full time while my father went to work overseas on a ship. He was a Chief Marine Engineer. That provided food and education for us. If my father didn’t work our lives would have been much harder. So my father took advantage of the overseas opportunities to give us a better life and access to education.

This is a common story for Filipina women, and it is their cultural belief that the men should go off to work while the women stay at home. (I don’t actually believe that should happen myself!) But it means that there is a culture of very strong women in the Philippines.

My mother and father divorced when I was two. They divorced because my mother was tired of living by the traditional cultural rules of my father's family. She thought it was better to leave. My father’s family were well educated, but my mother wasn't. She comes from a poor family, a big family on a poor island. But she was young, strong and independent. She didn’t want to submit to another culture and become a housewife. She felt submissive in this family structure. She was a feminist! With my father overseas it was difficult for my Mum on her own, and she didn’t want to have to live with his family.

Mum couldn’t afford to take everyone with her at the time. She didn’t have a lot of money, so she thought it would be better for us to stay with Dad, because he could provide financial for us better than she could. In her situation she thought it was best for her to leave, which was very hard for her to do.

I think I have ten siblings altogether; a combination of half and full biological brothers and sisters. I am the baby of the family. I don’t like using the term half-brother and half-sister. We are all joined. We have that connection. We are a family. We are the same blood family.

How I lost my hearing

I was born hearing and I became deaf when I was six. My Mum took us out to go home to Samar. I was playing with my brother and sister, I was very active and I loved to chat and be involved as a child.

learned how to get out of the locked and barricaded courtyard of the home we were staying in. I got pillows and stacked them in front of the barrier while Mum was sleeping and I climbed over the barrier. But I didn’t see the other side and how high the drop was on the other side; I didn’t realise how raised we were. So when I got down I fell over the embankment. I lay there unconscious for two days.

In those days there were no hospitals on the island. It was a very poor country. So they took me somewhere, and I don't know how skilled the medical staff were, but they saved my life. When I woke up, however, there was a lot of blood coming from my ears. They didn’t take me to hospital - there was probably something they could have done. And then it wasn’t until much later that my grandmother realised I was deaf but it was too late to do anything.

When I was six, my grandmother figured it out because I was watching TV really closely, because I can’t hear anything. I was watching Tom and Jerry and sitting right in front of the TV. My grandmother was calling my name and I didn’t turn around, which raised some concerns for her. So she went and got a really heavy metal bowl and she was banging the skillet and the bowl and sometimes I’d jump and sometimes I didn’t. When she was right behind me I could hear it, but not when she was far away. That's how we found out I was deaf. The family were really upset!

I went from being able to hear to being able to hear nothing. I can remember that I could speak in my own language, Tagalog. I could talk but I missed out on hearing everything. Everything was quiet. It was a profound and confusing change.

My dad and auntie decided to take me to an audiologist for a hearing test and found out I had lost my hearing. I wore a hearing aid at six years of age and my aunties and grandmother trained me how to speak.

Early education

I had already started school and had learned the basics before I went deaf, but I didn’t stay at the school for very long, about two years. I was bullied quite a bit. I remember asking as school if I could borrow a pencil. And one girl said ‘no - because you are deaf’. That left me on my own. The whole school laughed at me because I was deaf.

I made the decision not to go to the school because of the bullying. My grandparents would tell me to go and I would say no. I didn’t want to tell them what was happening with the bullying. And they would keep telling me to go but I would not be moved. In time, I told my auntie what was happening.

Then maybe one year later, my godfather who had a deaf daughter, found another school. They said, maybe you can go to this deaf school. I went - and I didn't know what was going on! I couldn’t sign - I knew nothing. I walked in and kept asking my dad, 'what’s going on? I’m not deaf!' I didn’t believe I was deaf! I believed I was hearing.

My dad sent me to school to board and live with my godfather’s family. They looked after me while dad was overseas. He called on the phone to check up regularly and he would ask them to put me on phone so he can hear my voice. I use to say, ‘Tatay kapag bumalik ka sa bahay?’ In English, this means, ‘Dad when are you back home?’ He knew something was wrong with me.

I would argue with my father, who told me I was the same as these kids, but I refused to agree. I settled in for a little while but then a year later I left because I didn’t want to go to a deaf school. It felt odd and I wanted to go to a hearing school. I got bullied again, so I made the decision to quit school and be home-schooled through the church. They did home-schooling every Sunday and they did special subjects.

My grandmother and aunties raised me and taught me to speak in Tagalog. I joined a hearing choir at church with my brothers, sister, cousins and neighbours friends.

And then, when I was 8 my mum returned, which was quite a shock! I was very confused. My father had a second wife, and I'd become very close to her. So when my mum came back, it caused a lot of confusion.

My biological mum and I were not very close because she left me when I was two but I was very close to my second mum because she raised me when I was five.

But Mum encouraged me to go back to school and I agreed. She found another school for me - a really big, government school that is famous throughout the Philippines. We visited the school and I was shocked because there were no little children there! But then I learned that it was a school for people who had never been to school before. Everyone, including myself, was arriving at a late age. People from 15 to 40 were arriving in Grade One! I was so shocked. I was the only young person in the class!

It didn’t really make me feel any more comfortable, because I didn’t know how to communicate with them, or anyone. I didn’t know how to communicate with deaf people. I thought they had mental health issues because that’s what I thought deafness was and I didn't want to be like that. But when they explained what deafness was, I had to accept that I was deaf. At that stage I didn’t sign; I was what you call an oral person. I spoke and I used lip reading.

My parents couldn’t look after me every day because they had to work, so they decided to send me to a special boarding school because we lived about 3 hours away from the school. I had to get up at 3:00 am and start class at 7:00 am every day. My parents decide to find a good guardian named Mrs Wai Bacalzo. She was the best teacher and speech therapist, as well as offering religious instruction and disability support at school. I called her mum because from the age of 8 years old, she raised me for 14 years.

Learning to sign

Then two girls arrived at the school who were about 5 years older than me and that event led to me learning how to sign. Everyone else knew how to sign and I was the only person who didn’t, so I was missing a lot of information. By accepting my deafness, I also accepted learning sign language. I made friends and I understood the teacher. I still maintained my oral skills while learning sign language, so I sort of worked with the two worlds. But one of my friends could only sign, so I had to learn sign language to communicate with them – that was the trigger. If I only had sign language I might be lonely. If I only had speech I might be lonely. To have both was the best way.

I was very lucky that my mother eventual found a great school for me.

I went through an awful lot! My family couldn’t find the best schools for me. It was a specialist school - very famous - the Philippines School for the Deaf that offered specialist education.

There wasn’t anything happening in the Philippines to help deaf people to move in the hearing world. They are regarded as a problem. They give little information so that they can deal with you quickly. So for instance, there were no interpreters. There were no interpreters at school, only hearing people. So it was very difficult for deaf people to move away from the specialist schools.

Discovering deaf identity

I found out about deaf identity late, when I was at high school in the Philippines. I learnt about it from volunteers through the Philippines Federal of the Deaf and World Federation of the Deaf (WFD). I got involved with them - I didn’t really understand leadership at the time. I did some leading at school, but when I got involved with PFD and WFD that’s when it all clicked into place.

I didn’t think I’d be able to develop relationships with anyone in the deaf community. I only knew people who could speak and hear and the deaf world is very different. It’s strange and peculiar when you first get introduced and it takes a while to understand it! But the deaf community taught me a lot. I learned more from them than people in the hearing world.

An example of the types of information I could now get that I didn't in the hearing world was something on the news. In the deaf world, they can go into depth and give you a lot more information. In the hearing world it is very brief and minimal.

The deaf world was more supportive, helping me to understand things, than the hearing world was. In deaf culture, there are more codes, a lot of different ways to give information. They can help you to understand it in a big picture/small picture kind of way, until you understand it. In the hearing world, they don't spend the time doing that. They don't make sure you understand.

Accepting deaf culture gave me an opportunity to grow. I learned about work! I learned about government! I never knew anything about government. I had to go into the deaf world and learn to develop that knowledge.

Becoming a leader

When I immersed myself in deaf culture, I learned I could be a leader. I was recognised at school that I was becoming a leader, when I passed all my tests and won a medal; a first honour. I didn’t have the confidence yet to take this out of school. But I could be a leader in the school.

I wanted to be a role model for others at school. I wanted the children to see good behaviour for a positive future and I wanted to model that for them. I wanted to demonstrate to them that if I was a leader and I did things the right way, and followed the rules, then they could follow that model themselves and become leaders

Dance was another way I developed my leadership skills. The dance teacher picked me to lead the dance group. I also started to become a leader in my sports group. So I was showing everyone that not only men lead, women lead too. I’m doing it and you can do it too was the message I wanted to give.

I knew that I was inspiring people and that they were watching me. All the kids at school would come to me and say ‘oh, she’ll know - she’s the leader in dance’. I was very proud of those achievements. I would encourage other young leaders, who would say to me, 'I want to be like you', which made me feel very proud.

Going to university

After finishing school I went to university. I was the only deaf student in the class. One of my other deaf friends wanted to come with me, so I brought them with me. They didn’t have any money, but my father used his allowance to pay for an interpreter - we didn’t get a free one then - and my friend got to use that interpreter. I did a BA in Art with all the other hearing students and we were the only deaf students in the class.

Unfortunately, I had to pull out of the course because I couldn’t afford the interpreter payments. We had a limited budget and it was very difficult to manage. I went to another college, which had deaf access. There were hearing and deaf students mixed so they already had interpreters which meant I didn’t have to cover that cost. I moved to that college. where all the deaf teachers knew me as a leader from school. They knew me from the past.

The College students elected me as President of CAP College. I became a leader teaching mixed genders dance for Performance events outside of college. I coached volleyball for women and for cheerleading. I was also involved in lectures helping women to be empowered if they had experienced abusive relationships or disability discrimination. I was involved with disability programs organised by the Rotary Sports Club.

Support from my father

My father was proud of me. When I was about 7 or 8 my father came home from his trip and I remember quite clearly that his dream was to have a Pilipino passport with a stamp on every page from a different country. I said to him, 'one day I am going to be the same as you; I am going to travel overseas one day'. And he said ‘Oh yeah?’ and I did!

My father supported my education and when I graduated from college, I couldn’t believe it! When I was young, I promised myself: 'I will finish, I will finish my studies, I will achieve this goal, and I will get a job and I will help the family because I want to be like Dad'. He is my role model. He supported us financially to support our studies. So I was determined to finish mine. I just want to role model my Dad and the opportunities he gave me.

Dad cried in the audience when I graduated. He was very proud. Before I graduated, I thought that I would work part time and study part time. I wanted to help out my Dad. I didn’t want him to have to work so hard for the family. I thought if I worked part time, I could help. But my father said 'No. Continue with your studies don’t work'.

Working life

But I was a bit naughty; I did go out and work! I worked in the theatre, doing ballet performance. We had deaf and hearing people in a dance group. It was a bit of work and I had to be very quiet about it. I would get home late and be pretty tired!

My eldest brother found out about it and told me I was naughty! ’You don’t want your studies to fail!' I admit, my studies suffered a little bit, so I stopped working and focused full time on my studies, because I really did need to finish them

When I finished studies I still had my volunteer involvement with PFD. So I was studying and volunteering - I wanted to get experience and I wanted to help the deaf community through lobbying and advocacy.

When I graduated, I still maintained my volunteer role and my first use of a sign language interpreter was with Auslan - and it was all spelling. That was my first experience with an Australian interpreter; I hadn’t learned Auslan yet! I could sign in Filipino Sign Language (FSL). But I wanted to learn finger spelling. So I got the alphabet books and I thought maybe - I was looking for anything that would tell me what finger spelling was. And eventually I found some books that would tell me what finger spelling was. So I taught myself the Australian alphabet. I learned how to spell my own name.

This experience with different signs made me realise that there are different sign languages across the world. So I had to go and learn them so I could talk to people across the world. I met people with different signing systems. My best friend invited me to her wedding, which was at one of the islands. A man from Australia came over to the island to meet me. He asked me to translate so I said I would try to help. (And this man became my ex-husband.) He wasn’t able to talk to my friends because he couldn't sign, so I had to translate for him and everyone that he wanted to speak to. It was very hard translating between the two languages!

There are also many different languages in the Philippines. When I talk to Mum and Dad they speak different languages. I couldn’t lip read both languages initially.

Coming to Australia

The Australian chap I met fell in love with me. I’d planned to go to America, but I ended up coming to Australia with this gentleman. I came for a one-month holiday initially to have a look around, then I went back home. And then six months later I moved to Canberra. That was in 1999 - that was the first time I came here for the visit.

I have a funny story to share. My sister told me when I moved that it was summer on Australia. So I packed all my summer gear with light dresses and thongs and sandals. And when I arrived, everyone walking past me had big coats on, big, thick warm coats. And I’m in thongs and thin clothes. I looked like a pauper, and I wondered what people must think of me. I walked up to the door and got the shock of my life, because it was winter! I think it was actually May, but in the Philippines it was summer at that time. It was so different! I had never experienced that cold before.

Everyone in the Philippines has got black hair, and here there was all sorts of coloured hair. And the fashion, the clothing was so different. But most different was the food! When I first arrived there was only one thing I could eat - rice, just rice!

Other things were different too. When friends would visit, I’d prepare food for dinner, and I’d invite them in to eat. And they would say, 'oh no, we’ve had dinner.' And I’d say – 'what, I didn’t know you had dinner - why are you here? 'And they said ‘why are you cooking all this food - we don’t need the food. We didn’t plan for the food.’ And I would say, 'but in my culture, we always cook food for visitors. It’s not planned, we just do it. We prepare food. We don’t make bookings for dinner in our culture. When you turn up you have food.' But in Australia you have to book for a meal - you have to plan it - it’s very different!

So I would have to take the food back to the kitchen - and then the next time when people visited I would say 'would you like a cup of tea, or a coffee and a biscuit?' It took me a while to get used to it.

When I arrived in Australia, I volunteered at the multicultural centre. I didn’t have any experience in an office at all - just hands on experience. And in the Philippines, we have maids, so I didn’t have experience what to do without a maid! How to cook, how to clean - I had no idea! I'd never even had bread before! I didn’t know where the Pilipino shops were! I started to get homesick. Eventually, I got a job at ANU doing payroll.

Gender, culture and feminism

Gender was part of the cultural difference. In Australia it is more equal and that was a shock. My dream was to be equal! I want to be like my father. I think I’ve taken on my father’s qualities of what he could do. He could travel, he could work, he could manage the responsibilities for his family. I wanted to do that and I didn’t think of it as a gender thing. I just felt I want to do what he does.

I am a feminist. I don’t shy away from calling myself a feminist. All people are equal, we are all the same. We don’t want one person to be submissive. If you can do it, do it. You are human. Don’t think of men, women, lesbian, gay, we are human; we can all achieve the same things. I don’t think about colour, culture, I think we are all the same. Everyone benefits from being feminist!

Is disability a feminist issue? Women with disabilities in Australia should be equal, and I think we are approaching equality now. My friend, who is deaf and in a wheelchair, is a lesbian and a feminist. She ticks a lot of boxes, and I think she has equality in her life

Disability and discrimination

I’ve had one experience of discrimination in the workplace. I was interviewed and told I had the position. They offered me the job and then withdrew the offer, I believed, because I was deaf. It was my first experience of disability discrimination. At the time, I felt it wasn’t right. But my husband told me to let it go and that I would find another job.

I disagreed. I thought the way I had been treated was inappropriate. I felt oppressed. I didn’t want to give up. I wondered what would happen to other people with disabilities if I didn’t stand up for myself.

So I asserted my rights and said I wanted to challenge the discrimination against me. I did research and found I had evidence to support my case. I had the right to appeal with the Human Rights Commission. I asked the commission if I had a case and should I fight the decision.

Deaf people don’t have access, they have a lot of limitations, and I fought it. I wanted to sue the employer. I gave them an ultimatum. So they negotiated an agreement and I got a job. This decision gave me a lot of confidence. I stood up for myself and showed them that you can’t just decide not to offer a job to a person with a disability because it will be too hard for you, the employer. The disabled world, the deaf world, the hearing world, they all have to fit together.

They withdrew the offer based on the opinion of an external assessor about what I would need to do the job. They should have asked me what I needed! They don’t know what I need if they don’t know me. The external assessors created a list of requirements for an employer, who then got overwhelmed by this list. If they had asked me, I could have given them a better assessment of my personal needs than someone telling them I need technology that I will never use!

The employer has to ask the person with the disability what they need. In my situation, people think I need a mirror on my desk to see if people are walking behind me, and that I need a TTY phone. But for me, I know the technology I use. I don’t need a mirror. I’ve got a way around phonically that means I don’t need a TTY phone. I can use the computer in front of me. I don’t need additional equipment. The deaf person knows what they need when they know what skills are required to do the job. They know when they need an interpreter and this might not be all the time. I might need an interpreter, I might need a fire alarm and I might need a pager. But an external assessor won't know what I need! People with disabilities have a lot of skills to solve problems. They can provide information about them to any potential employer. We need to teach the hearing community to embrace the skills that deaf people have!

Working as a volunteer

I’m Vice president of the board for Deaf ACT, and I also volunteer to help deaf seniors. by volunteering. I help organise activities for them. They don’t have a lot of opportunities to attend workshops. They always seem to be at home. They need to get out and meet their own peers, to learn from each other and refresh their skills. They need to learn about their rights and learn how to respond to discrimination. So I arrange activities like that for them. I organised a deaf seniors group to attend a workshop for World Elderly Awareness. They were shocked, and it is important to point out how some of them have experienced elder abuse from their family and friends. I also find raise for DeafACT sports, and for other related events.

I got involved with WWDACT. I was involved with 'She Leads', and also involved with them at meeting levels when I also started to get involved through my work. My first job was with the NDIS Taskforce, Community Service Directorate. That's when I met Sue Salthouse. And my involvement grew from there. I went to training, meetings and a conference.

I’ve been involved through training programs and violence against women’s groups that they ran, because I had the experience of an abusive relationship myself. When I got a job, I got even more involved with the women’s groups and violence against women with disabilities groups. It just went from that.

I am intelligent and resilient now, but at the time I didn’t have that resilience. I was so green. I was fearful - I didn’t know what to do in a strange culture. And I didn’t have any friends! I didn’t have anyone to talk to! But luckily I found some friends, — who were able to help; some hearing friends. They were Indonesian friends; I hadn’t been introduced to any Pilipino friends. And my ex never introduced me to anyone else - only to his tight group of friends. But luckily a hearing friend from Indonesia introduced me to a Pilipino friend and I started to get out more. If he had introduced me to friends and other people form the Philippines, in a new country, I could have felt like I belonged. I’d lost my identity and culture, and I felt like I'd lost my family.

Finding my cultural identity, again

When I left the Philippines I felt it was hard living in Canberra, so I would have to make an effort to belong. Australian deaf culture was something I could connect with. But as time went on, all my memories coming back - I’d think of home, and it would bring back those memories, and I would be taken aback a bit.

I was reading about an Aboriginal girl, talking about her history and her culture; how she didn’t want to lose her culture. That helped me to realise what I was going through. I didn’t want to lose my culture and history. And I wondered, how do I keep my history? Then my brother moved here. And he reminded me of the importance of my cultural heritage, even though I was living in Australia. It made me think I needed to change back a bit. I thought it was good to be half Australian and half Pilipino and maintain my culture and my history.

So I have three cultures - Australian, Philippines and deaf. I think I have more opportunities as a result. It seems to open doors for me, for access. If I only have one culture - I only have one set of skills. I know three worlds. I’ve got more keys to the door! I have skills that people without disabilities don’t have!

Social concerns

What are the social issues I'm most passionate about? The work experience discrimination example I told you about - I am quite passionate that employers should negotiate with people with disabilities one on one and not take the advice of an assessor who doesn’t know the individual person.

Governments need good training to recruit people with disabilities. They can then have a wider scope on the work they can offer staff. You can’t employ someone with a disability and then discriminate against him or her in the work place. You can’t employ someone and then make it hard for him or her to do his or her job. Career progress needs to be possible. This means managers have to change as well. So if the managers don’t know about disability they need to be properly trained to negotiate and respond and react to people with disabilities as individuals.

Also, you really need an Auslan interpreter when you need it! Live captions are not enough. A deaf person can’t respond to live captions! You need two-way communication, which means you need interpreters. You need complete access not one-way access.

Here is the scenario; I'll say to my colleagues, "I've got an idea, can we discuss it?' And they will say – 'Ok, good we’ll do live captions.' And I’ll say – 'ok but how do I answer? And do I speak in the microphone? I can’t speak in English and you can’t read my signing - how are you going to capture my response?' You need live interpreters, so that I have a voice. I don’t have a voice if you only have captions.

We need signing taught at schools. Australia should have Auslan as part of the curriculum; it’s an Australian language. My son - who is 9 now – knows Auslan.

But he could sign before he could speak. We started teaching him sign language first, and then when he was two, he started speaking. He has four languages, English, Auslan, Pilipino sign and Pilipino speech!

Deaf people need full access features, such as closed captions, Auslan interpreters, translation interpreter, live captions and for everyone, especially managers to have deaf awareness training. I am also very concerned over deaf seniors who can’t get an interpreter, due to no NDIS funding because they are over 65 age.

Balance in life

My husband is hearing (although he can only hear one side) and he can sign Auslan. I have just the one child. I play so many sports, and I volunteer to help others – and I travel.

I do have a good balance in life. I work full-time and I study at university part time. I play volleyball, rugby and futsal and I’m involved on the Deaf board as a committee member. I’m quite involved. But I do think deaf people can achieve a lot of things. And we can have a work life balance.

Most of time I communicate in 3 languages at home: Auslan, English and Tagalog. Because my brother lives with us I speak mixed English and Tagalog when he is at home. I sign Auslan with my husband and son as well.

Reflecting on the challenges of leadership

We need to encourage women with disabilities to take leadership opportunities. Encouragement becomes leadership in itself. If you encourage women and provide opportunities, they can bring friends with them and then that friendship helps to develop their involvement. For example, if someone wants to join, they can join on a friendly level, and then become more involved. So when you become friends, you can say, 'I’m not going if you aren’t going. OK let's go together!' And you encourage the friendship, and the friendship and encouragement grows into leadership and knowledge. It’s about friendship. It takes the pressure off.

I think it is important that I am seen to be showing the way. What will happen to other deaf people, deaf women in the community, if they don’t see me achieving things? If I am out there and visible, I’m showing them women can do it, deaf people can do it. Your background doesn't matter! We are all human! We are feminists! And I feel that we all have the same soul. We are all connected.

Rona Lazo-Treloggen was interviewed by Dr Nikki Henningham (with assistance from Deb Hayes) on 11 September 2018 for the Redefining Leadership project.