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Where is President Melissa now?


VIDEO DESC & TRANSCRIPT: The NAD logo appears on bottom right corner as a watermark. Melissa Draganac-Hawk is standing inside a conference hall with other people standing/sitting behind her.

MELISSA: Hello, it's Melissa with my video update for July. Behind me, there are a lot of people standing and sitting while facing the stage in the background. I'm at the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) Conference that takes place once every four years. This year, we are here for the WFD conference in Paris, France. For the conference this year, there are 89 countries involved! In America, we have the Council of Representatives (COR) meetings that happen during the NAD Conference -- the WFD Conference is similar, with a lot of discussion, motions, priorities, and voting. WFD uses a different process which is new to me. Delegates from different countries vote either yes or no, without any deliberations on changes to the motion or item up for a vote. So the voting process is very straightforward. Today is an exciting day because delegates vote on the next WFD President, there are three candidates. One is from America, which the NAD endorsed - Joe Murray, the second is from South Africa, and the third candidate is from Italy. We recently learned that Joe Murray from America won and is our next WFD President, Howard and I are thrilled! The delegates’ general assembly portion of the conference is almost over, afterwards the WFD conference continues with workshops -- about 2,000 people are expected to participate. Thank you.

Video cuts to grey background with the NAD logo quickly changing in different bright colors from teal to white to black to hot pink to green to orange to teal to yellow to purple to finally the official NAD logo with copyright text underneath “The National Association of the Deaf (c) 2019 All Rights Reserved”.