Well, hello! It’s certainly has been a long time since I’ve last posted on this blog. With the whole lockdown and finding our way forward as deaf people in this COVID World, I began to make notes from my dealings with businesses as a deaf person. With the introduction of masks and lack of face-to-face, it’s certainly true that it’s become tougher for deaf people or for those with varying degrees of hearing loss.
So, you may ask how businesses can be deaf aware?
Actually, I want to challenge that question. Let’s change it to be ‘deaf accessible’.
My personal understanding of deaf awareness is that a person learns the knowledge and the tools of how to be aware to communicate with a deaf person. But actually, it doesn’t mean that they will put that into practice.
Think of it this way. You went to school to learn French and do you use it now?
So, I want to focus on the adoption of this deaf awareness into something I call deaf accessibility. This is all about undertaking proactive and good practice in ensuring people with hearing loss or deafness can live the life they want communicating with ease.
But as we know COVID-19 has put pressure on this idea. I would like to give businesses a helping hand to ensure that they are deaf accessible in this covid world. So, when AccessAble offered me the chance to write an article about this on their blog that’s catered to businesses, naturally I jumped at the chance.
So, here it is on AccessAble’s website, my top tips for businesses in the UK to be deaf accessible in this COVID world:
How to be deaf accessible in the COVID World
Please let me know what your thoughts are in the comments below or if you think there are more tips, please share them too!
Thanks,
Ed – The Deaf Traveller
The Deaf Traveller 