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Volunteering England welcomes deaf volunteers online
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May 10th, 2007 - 22:32:08 |
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Volunteering England welcomes deaf volunteers online 9 May 2007
For immediate release
Volunteering England is celebrating Deaf Awareness week with todays 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 Englands 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 peoples 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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Source: http://www.volunteering.org.uk
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Dao Thi Thu Hien
Vietnam NFP of GYCA
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