Kia ora, my name is Rebecca. I was born and raised in Nelson and now live back in the region with my own family. I work as an Adviser on Deaf Children covering the Nelson-West Coast area, a job I have been doing for 10 years now. In my spare time, I enjoy the outdoors. I do activities such as trail walking, paddle-boarding, cycling, running and snowboarding. Time with family and friends is important to me. I also love writing and taking photos.
I first discovered captions on TV as a teenager and I was so excited to finally be able to watch Shortland Street without having to ask my sister what was happening! I am profoundly deaf and wear a cochlear-implant, and captions enable me to enjoy TV programmes independently. I rely on captions during a programme to help give me the whole picture of what is going on. It is hard to lipread everyone on screen! When I read the captions, I miss nothing!
It was awesome to watch the Tokyo Olympics with live captions this year. I never realised so much was said in a commentary while athletes were racing! Captioned TV programmes that I really enjoy are; Head High, Call The Midwife and Have You Been Paying Attention? Captions make TV accessible to me. I am fortunate to have good literacy skills, as you have to be able to read fast to keep up with televised captions.
Media accessibility is important for independence, for individuals to be able to access news and entertainment. I would like to see all evening TV captioned. If every nighttime programme across channels 1,2,3 and Prime had captions, people like me would have a choice of what to watch rather than having to watch whatever might be captioned. Also, more live captions on sporting events would be inclusive to those who struggle to hear.
