As easy as A, B, C

Dani Francis, Hopwood Hall College Communication Support Worker, Louise Bloomfield and Aqib Hussain

Staff and students at Hopwood Hall College have been learning the alphabet in sign language, as part of Deaf Awareness Week to help raise awareness of the challenges facing those with deafness.

The UK Council on Deafness has reported that one in six people in the UK are deaf or hard of hearing, yet there is still a huge lack of awareness.

To help tackle this, Hopwood Hall College decided to take part in Deaf Awareness Week (4 - 8 May) to help students learn more about the issue.

The week’s activities included competitions encouraging students to learn British Sign Language as well as a challenge to be the fastest to fingerspell the alphabet. As a musical soundtrack, signed songs were played in the College throughout the week.

There were also plenty of opportunities to meet with deaf and hearing-impaired students to learn how to communicate more easily with them and find out more from organisations such as Hearing Dogs for Deaf People.

Helen Redman, Student Support Manager, commented: “The week was a great success. The students were really keen to learn more about sign language and how they could communicate better with their fellow students, which was great to see.”