1st birthday celebrations for the local Deaf & Hard of Hearing Women’s Group
October 5th, 2024
Bristol & South Gloucestershire Deaf & Hard of Hearing Women’s Group celebrated its 1st birthday in September at Little Stoke Community Hall. The group was set up a year ago with funding from Bristol’s Centre for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People and meets every month to bring deaf and hard of hearing women together. This is a crucial goal because not only are there communication barriers with the hearing world, but also within the deaf community. As one of our signing deaf members says ‘I was really nervous to meet hard of hearing women, but I now realise we can enjoy activities and all socialise together.’ Another hard-of-hearing member says: ‘I have now started to learn BSL and I have got lots of information and new equipment in my house to help me.’ That is the power of peer support!
We are a diverse group of women who have different communication needs – some use BSL, others rely on English and lipreading, some are hard-of-hearing, some profoundly deaf, some have hearing aids, others cochlear implants, but we all look forward to meeting every month and enjoying activities and opportunities for education and campaigning that are delivered in a deaf-friendly way – everything is run by someone who knows what it is like to be deaf or hard-of-hearing.
We are proud of breaking down barriers with BSL interpreters at every meeting and are looking to trial online captioning to help our hard-of-hearing members socialise, using the latest technology, as well as delivering deaf-friendly learning opportunities: for example, we will be running specially-tailored First Aid sessions this autumn. Highlights from the past year have been TV star Yvonne Cobb (Morning Live) giving talks and we have had our own Deaf Antiques Roadshow where everyone brought examples of outdated deaf technology, now museum pieces!
We were very pleased to welcome rising deaf star author Sarah Marsh to launch our autumn season. Sarah’s book, A Sign of Her Own, has just been published – an historical novel about a deaf female character, whose stories are often not represented in the historical records. We found it fascinating to learn about the challenge of representing both lipreading and sign language in writing.
We are looking forward to the future and reaching more deaf women locally for crafts, activities, learning and support, which are often difficult to achieve with communication barriers with the hearing world.
Contact us at [email protected] for more information.
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