To celebrate this week Deaf Action is organising free taster sessions in British Sign Language (BSL) on Monday 3 October 2011 at their Head Office:- 49 Albany Street Edinburgh EH1 3QY. Here is what they say:-
What will the session involve?
The BSL taster session will provide:
- The basics of BSL – an easy starting point for all ages and ability! We will cover greeting signs, the fingerspelling alphabet and teach you your name.
- A brief look at Deaf culture
- Communication tactics
- An outline of the different kinds of deafness
The session stake place at 10am and 2.30pm and will last approx 1.5 hours with plenty of time to answer any questions or queries.
This event is suitable for absolute beginners, no prior experience or knowledge is necessary but a passion for learning will help!
Why is British Sign Language Important?
Awareness of legislation is important for every organisation and BSL is the fourth indigenous language of the UK.
The Equality Act (EA) and The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995 asks organisations to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to ensure that Deaf, deafened, deafblind and hard of hearing people have the same access to services and information as hearing people. This may mean translating your information into BSL if requested.Learn to Sign Week is an annual celebration to encourage people to learn sign language and think about communication, it also aims to raise awareness of the 70,000 people in the UK whose first or preferred language is British Sign Language.
If you would like to find out more information, please contact Jean – marketing@deafaction.org
Staffordshire Police have published a BSL video on YouTube which you can see here….
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