The WASLI Board
WASLI Secretary
Zane Hema
Zane is Maori from New Zealand and has lived in London since 1992. He works full time freelance British Sign Language (BSL)/English Interpreter. He started his career in supporting Deaf students in Further Education.
Zane served as the National Chair of ASLI (Association of Sign Language Interpreters for England, Wales and Northern Ireland) from 2001 – 2005 and currently serves on the Board of ‘efsli’ – the European Forum of Sign Language Interpreters (2002 - )
He became interested in the work to establish a World Association in 2002 during the International Symposium for Sign Language Interpreters in Washington DC and in 2003 joined the working group to assist in their work.
At the inaugural WASLI in Worcester, South Africa, Zane was elected as Secretary. He was elected to continue as Secretary at the WASLI conference in Segovia, Spain, 2007.
“The sign language interpreting community is an international community and there is much to learn and to do in order to gain recognition as a profession, and to do so in collaboration with the international Deaf community. WASLI, therefore, has a vital role to play and I would like to support WASLI in their work.”