SDU Organization
Information about Sveriges Dövas Ungdomsförbund (SDU) = Swedish Deaf Youth Association

Swedish Deaf Youth Association (SDU) was founded in 1977 and is not affiliated to any political party or religious denomination.

SDU is a special interest organization whose purpose is to look after the interests of deaf children and deaf youth, particularly in cultural and recreational matters. The local youth organizations for the deaf are affiliated to SDU, and as SDU´s target groups are children and youth in the ages of 7 to 30, the organization affiliates children and youth from Sveriges Dövas Riksförbund (the Swedish National Association of the Deaf - SDR) as well.

SDU´s board consists of seven members who are elected at the highest decision-making body, The General Assembly, which is assembled every second year. In the end of the year when General Assembly is not assembled, SDU summons its members to a club conference where special topics are discussed together with economical and organizational matters. The club conference is SDU´s advisory body.

Head Office
SDU got its first youth adviser in 1978. Today SDU has a secretariat located in Stockholm. It consists of two full-time employees, an ombudsman and an administer worker.

Goal
SDU pursues an active interest policy that is both religiously and party politically unbound. This interest policy is concerned with deaf-political and social matters that concern deaf children and youth, such as education, drug issues and cultural matters.

Membership
Organizations for deaf children and youth can become affiliated to SDU if they have more than seven members in the ages of 7 to 30. Individuals who are 7 to 30 years old and who are deaf or have deaf parents or siblings can become SDU members through their local deaf organization or through the local deaf youth organization. Hearing youth can also become members of SDU provided that they share the objective of SDU´s policy.

Member´s benefits
All SDU members get their own copies of Dövas tidning, a monthly paper that is issued by the Swedish National Association of the Deaf. Information from SDU is published in this paper along with other news from the deaf community in Sweden.
All SDU members also get a discount on their participation in camps and other activities arranged by SDU.

Activities
SDU arranges courses and camps where the arrangements are drug free. SDU also organizes other activities for its members in different topics that might be interested for them.

Students councils
SDU supports the pupils councils at the five comprehensive schools for deaf children in Sweden and the students councils at the national upper secondary schools for deaf in Örebro.

Information
SDU has access to different channels in order to spread information about its activities to its members. The Youth Pages in the Dövas tidning has been mentioned earlier. Other channels are the database called SDR´s First Class and Internet. (homepage)

SDU also has the opportunity to publish information on Slingan, a teletext page (#280) shown by the national TV channels 1 and 2 by Sveriges Television (the Swedish public service television company).

Cooperation with other organizations
SDU co-operates with deaf youth organizations from the Nordic countries. Furthermore, SDU co-operates with other organizations for disabled youth in Sweden, such as Unga Hörselskadade (Hard-of-hearing Youth in Sweden) and Dövblind Ungdom (Deaf-Blind Youth).

SDU cooperates with many other organizations as well. Amongst them are:
- Sveriges Dövas Riksförbund (SDR) - (the Swedish National Association of the Deaf)
- Riksförbundet för döva, hörselskadade och språkstörda barn (DHB) - (The Swedish National Association for Deaf, Hearing-Impaired and language-Impaired children)
Moreover, SDU also cooperates with organizations for deaf youth all around the world.

SDU Board Links

Mailadress to SDU - sdu@sdrf.se