9 May 2007
For immediate release
Volunteering England is celebrating Deaf Awareness week with today’s launch of the first ever video introduction for British Sign Language (BSL) users on its website.
Produced for Volunteering England (VE) in conjunction with the British Deaf Association (BDA), the introductory video aims to improve accessibility and outreach to the deaf community. It outlines Volunteering England’s work and services for anyone working with volunteers and signposts potential volunteers to volunteer centres.
However, according to a Volunteering England poll, the volunteering sector still has a lot to learn about supporting the deaf community. When asked whether volunteering organisations were well prepared to work with and support deaf volunteers, 64% replied “not at all”, 16% said, “just about”, and only 20% said “yes”.
Tom Levitt MP sits on the Commission for the Future of Volunteering and has previously worked as a consultant to improve deaf people’s access to services and information. He is one of the few MPs in the UK with a qualification in BSL and welcomed the video, saying:
"Volunteering is for everybody – and nothing could demonstrate that better than Volunteering England's latest means of promoting inclusion amongst volunteers. BSL is the first or only language of 50,000 British people and initiatives like this will do much to give Deaf people, so often excluded from the mainstream, the confidence to volunteer within our communities."
John Brownlie, New Technologies Development Manager for the British Deaf Association said: "Our aim, at the BDA, is for Deaf people to have full access to vital information and services such as education, health and employment, and organisations like Volunteering England work with us towards that goal. We now hope their website sets an example to other organisations, and that more BSL versions of websites will be available in the future."
Christopher Spence, Chief Executive of Volunteering England, said:
“We hope that the BSL video will act as a gesture of welcome to deaf visitors in their preferred language and encourage other organisations to look creatively at improving their accessibility. It is very important that potential volunteers and those working with them are able to access information in a meaningful way.”
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Case study
Patrick Wright, volunteers at Nottingham Volunteer Centre and as an assistant in an Oxfam books and music store.
“I enjoy meeting new people and learning new skills. Doing something to improve the quality of life for other people makes it even more worthwhile. Sometimes there are communication difficulties, which we get around by writing things down. I can’t really take part in meetings as I cannot hear most of what people are saying so I rarely contribute. The manager helps out by ensuring I get the minutes and sometimes he would talk to me about it afterwards. The ideal solution would be to have an interpreter and/or a note-taker.
“I have made some good friends through volunteering, and it gave me more confidence in myself when trying to communicate with hearing people. I feel more positive about myself. I haven’t found a paid job as yet, but I’m still hopeful I will get one soon.”
Notes to Editors
- For more information on Volunteering England, call Cat Dean on 020 7520 8932 oremail cat.dean@volunteeringengland.org.For out of hours press enquiries, contact Sonya Roberts on 07952 128057.
- The signing video was produced by the BDA and funded by the ChangeUp Volunteering Hub.
58% of people with a long-term illness or disability volunteer informally at least once a year, compared to 70% of people without an illness or disability. And 35% volunteer once a month, compared with 37% with no illness or disability (source: 2005 Citizenship survey).
