North of the Stupid Line

22 September 2008
The Royal Association for Deaf people (RAD) and the Legal Services Commission (LSC) are proud to announce the launch of a pilot specialist casework service in British Sign Language (BSL) via the Internet to eligible clients. RAD Legal Services has been working in partnership with the LSC and online interpreting service provider Significan’t [...]

It seems that at the root of everything is the absence of an Act of Parliament which enforces the right of Deaf people to use BSL. If a BSL Act was enacted, this would be the sure fire way of:

Ensuring that service providers provide access to BSL users;
Bringing BSL back into education as the [...]

A few years ago, I “came out” to my family as a BSL user, and informed my parents that I wished they’d brought me up bilingually from an early age, rather than forcing me to struggle with oralist methods.
While I just about managed to cope with oralism, and get a good education using oral methods, [...]

After delivering a DDA presentation in BSL at RAD’s Welcome Hear workshop today, I was approached by one of the delegates who himself has some degree of hearing loss. The conversation went something like this:
Man: Can you speak?
Me (speaking): Yes I can.
Man: Did you not think that it would be better to speak rather [...]

University of College London’s Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre is currently carrying out some valuable research into BSL and Deaf people. They need volunteers to participate in their research projects.
If you’re interested, go here.
I am a Participant, because I am passionate about BSL and this research will help the Deaf community to press [...]