Expanding Horizons for Deaf People Case Study

Talking With Hands

Talking With Hands is a group for young people, mainly deaf and hearing-impaired, who want to have the same experiences as their contemporaries. It encourages these young people to generate and develop innovative ideas and have a go at them! This enables them to develop their talent and believe in themselves. The group opens doors for these children, which they would not experience in any other surrounding, because each event is held in their preferred language. This provides opportunities for them to benefit from cultural activities, which may otherwise be unavailable to them because they are hard of hearing. The aim of this project is to enable the youth group to participate in trips to theatrical performances (both stage and screen), museums and sporting events in and around the Northamptonshire area with the full support of sign language interpreters. Complementary workshops will be held after each visit in order to enhance learning outcomes using Total Communication techniques.

Total Communication is the complete interactive experience combining British Sign Language (BSL), subtitles, written information, Sign-Supported English, and lip reading – including the correct use of body language. All of which enables deaf, hard of hearing (D/deaf) and disabled people to access to leisure facilities. For example, films are shown with a deaf person simultaneously signing with subtitles, sound and audio description, which ensures everything is conveyed correctly.

Our aims:
To develop the children’s talents and belief in themselves! We aim to do this by listening to their wants, needs and aims for their present and future lives. We also aim to ensure that no matter how much, or how little, hearing a child (or adult) has they will all be able to understand any theatrical performance they choose to see and any museum exhibit they want to learn more about.

How we will achieve this:
To give the kids greater access to leisure and educational facilities, in their preferred way of communicating. For a deaf person, even a visit to a cinema or theatre can be a very frustrating experience. We aim to change this by providing Total Communication; which prevents them from feeling isolated, and gives them the opportunity to talk about the experience with friends afterwards; which is something they would not usually be able to do.

We also train deaf, blind and disabled teenagers and adults to enable them to work in leisure industries. For a lot of these people it will be the first time they will have worked, as being deaf, blind or disabled can make obtaining a job very difficult. Talking With Hands advances the education of deaf, hard of hearing and people with other disabilities in the arts by increasing access to the cinema, theatre and museums through the provision of total communication. We are also developing animations, which will be in Total Communication.

Where we are currently at:
We run a regular Saturday afternoon club, which gets various young people together in a fun, safe environment! For these, we have a number of volunteers currently running several activities. These include; art workshops, cooking, sculpture, dance and drama lessons, DJ-ing skills, martial arts coaching, IT sessions, and sporting/gaming activities. We also run trips to the cinema and theatre, plus DVD screenings at the youth club, all using Total Communication. At the moment though, these trips are one-off events. If the kids return on a normal occasion with their family they come up against the usual communication problems; making them feel depressed, alone and outcast once more. So, we have realised that we need to create a DVD informing various different organisations of the small changes they can make that will give their venues a greater audience; as well as enabling deaf/disabled children equal access to the fun and education that all young people deserve!

Awards:
The hard work of our volunteers has been recently recognised with The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service and we now use the logo on all our material. In November 2007, we received a Beacon Fellowship Award in recognition of our ‘Outstanding Contribution to Charitable and Social Causes’. Northampton Community Foundation gave us an award in December for ‘Making Things Happen’. In 2007, Talking with Hands became registered charity no. 1118535. The charity’s founder, Rose-Ann O’Malley, has also been made an MBE. She collected the award, and met the Queen plus other members of the Royal family – on 20th May 2008.

Project contact details

Talking With Hands
18 St. Leonard’s Court
Far Cotton
Northampton
Northamptonshire
NN4 8BL