Summaries of 2018

 

Summaries in BSL

Chris: Project Development Manager

Hello everybody, I’m the Christmas Ghost from the past, the present and the future! Not really, my name is Chris Beech and I’m the Zebra Access project development manager and myself and the team just want to give you a summary of 2018. 2018 has flown by and we are already in December now! The Zebra Access team have been really busy this year organizing activities, trips, events, awareness teaching as well as being busy with the various services we run, and they would like to share some of the highlights of 2018. With Christmas and 2019 just around the corner watch this space for more information about all of our exciting plans for the new year!

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Marian: Community Matters Deaf Employment Officer

This year at Job Club we have been networking with Access To Work Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton Council, Job CentrePlus, and Thrive to Work. We have been encouraging clients and supporting them in their job search. We have been helping them with their interview skills and creating their CVs in order to build their confidence and enable them to push through the many barriers they face and to be successful in finding employment. We are extremely proud of the progress they have made and would like to see lots more people attend the Job Club in the future.

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Sean: Community Development Officer

Hello! Looking back at 2018 we have had an amazing year with lots of memorable events taking place.

In 2018 we set up our bi-weekly Coffee morning at the Light House in Wolverhampton and it has been regularly attended by the community with the group growing throughout the year as it gained popularity. We have had guest speakers attend the Coffee Mornings to give talks on a wide range of topics and the community have learnt a lot from the access to the information they otherwise would not have access to which has had a positive impact on their lives. The information has been extremely useful and they thoroughly enjoyed the talks.

We have also been on lots of trips throughout the year. We went to the Coventry Transport Museum, Stratford Upon Avon and the Birmingham Arts Museum. The community really enjoyed our trips as they were able to catch up with pals, meet new friends and the social aspect also helped them to maintain their healthy wellbeing.

Due to the networking we have been doing this year, Zebra Access now has good relationships with many different professional organizations like the City of Wolverhampton Council, West Midlands Police, Health Watch and the NHS, and from these relationships we are have been able to work together to improve the accessibility for the Deaf community in Wolverhampton as well as helping the organizations to establish good relations with the community.

We have also recruited some volunteers in order to help support the staff with the ‘Be Friend Scheme’, BSL and Deaf awareness training and with the youth activities. We really appreciate our volunteers as they help the staff so much.

One of the highlights of the year was the ‘Hate Crime’ project we were involved in. The project was funded by West Midlands Police and Zebra-Uno made a short video highlighting several examples of hate crimes towards Deaf people. The video has been a massive success and it has had nearly 3000 views on YouTube! As a result of the success of the video many Deaf people have reported hate crimes to us at Zebra Access as we are now the official Third-Party hate crime reporters in the city for the Deaf community.

So to wrap up, 2018 has been an amazing year for Zebra Access and we are really looking forward to 2019 as we have lots planned for the year ahead!

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Deirdre: Youth Development Officer & English tutor

Hello! I have been very busy this year with my 2 roles. As Youth development officer I have been able to meet lots of Deaf young people at the various workshops we have set up and lots of youth have visited The Way youth centre in Wolverhampton. Hopefully we will get more youth joining us next year. I have also been very busy with English tuition, helping the community to develop their English skills and I have seen their confidence grow a lot of the past year. Hopefully this will continue into 2019, we’ll have to wait and see!

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Kirsty: BSL & Deaf Awareness Tutor

This year has flown by! It will soon be Christmas and the year will be over! Looking back on the year I have been very busy but I’ve really enjoyed myself teaching BSL, 1 to 1 tuition and with the Deaf awareness training. I have met so many lovely people this year and I have built up a lot of good relationships with them. It has been fantastic to see their communication skills develop and the Deaf awareness sessions was a massive wake up call to some of the participants which resulted in many of them wanting to get involved in supporting the Deaf community! Altogether I taught about 8 – 9 sessions and next year I’m looking forward to teaching more sessions and seeing the communication barriers over come! Thank you, Goodbye!

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Sean:
Hello, looking back at 2018 it’s been an amazing year! With the year drawing to a close, we can look forward to a lot of exciting events in the 2019. The community will also plan some events as well as a fund-raising event. All of our services will be busy in the new year as Job Club, Youth development, BSL tuition and Deaf awareness will continue to have events through-out the new year. Advocacy will also be having lots of workshops, speakers and events to look forward to. We will also have a massive event in the new year as Deaffest will be back on 17th – 19th May in Wolverhampton at the Light House. For more information about tickets etc please see the Deaffest website.

All of the staff at Zebra Access would like to say a massive thank you to you all for your support throughout 2018 and we hope to see you all in 2019. Happy new year to you all!

All:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!