´óÏó´«Ã½ iD is the new sign in system for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Online. It's currently being rolled out across all services that require a user to register or sign in.
On Monday November 2nd we'll be switching all of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s blogs to ´óÏó´«Ã½ iD from the previous ´óÏó´«Ã½ membership system. And in the New Year our message boards and other communities will be heading down the same route.
To find out more about this new login system, click the following link.
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Famous Deaf Blind political activist Helen Keller is to be revived on a Broadway stage next year, in a stage version of The Miracle Worker.
Keller will be played by 12yr old Abigail Breslin, who is best known for her role in independent sleeper hit Little Miss Sunshine.
What do you think? Should it be a deaf blind actress, or just a good actress playing the part? We wait with bated breath to see what the reaction is from the American Deaf Community.
Rochester, NY is one of America's most deaf friendly cities with huge numbers of accessible venues and events, and Rochester Institute of Technology has a high intake of international Deaf students.
So it's no surprise to read about their pioneering annual event, 'Deaf Hospital', where all the medical staff are deaf and the patients are hearing.
The aim of this workshop is to show medical students the challenges they face, and the potential solutions, when trying to communicate with Deaf patients.
We think it's a great idea and someone should pioneer it over here. Read more about it on this link:
Sometimes we just read about stories that are so odd we have to pass them on to our readers. Koko the signing gorilla is one of them.
She recently held a competition to find the best pumpkin carving, in conjunction with the upcoming Hallowe'en celebrations.
After much deliberation, cogitation and agitation, she settled on a winner by blowing in its ear, as you do.
Koko is one of the world's most renowned gorillas - reared from birth, she learned her first sign within two weeks, and after 25 years can now use 1,000 different signs in American Sign Language.
Look at the pictures on the link below for more American Sign Language Gorilla Goodness:
On this week's See Hear, we mark Black History Month by meeting a group of black deaf people who want to find out more about their history - and some of them are shocked to learn of the injustice of the slave trade.
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They visited the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool - where regular BSL interpreted events are offered:
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You can also find out more about Black History Month here:
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With the sign language interpreting profession becoming more popular than ever, we delve into the secret life of interpreters and find out about some of the more unusual and awkward situations their line of work has taken them into! You'llÌýnever look at your friendly neighbourhood communicator in quite the same way again - perhaps with a touch more sympathy... or even pity?
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We're alsoÌýcatching up with Melissa in the next instalment of the Baby Diaries, and Memnos shares another of his Stories Behind the Signs.
An ambitious and darkly comic drama series is coming to Channel 4 - and it features a deaf character.
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Written by Jack Thorne (Skins, The Scouting Book for Boys), Cast OffsÌýis a six-partÌý'mockumentary' telling the story of six disabled characters sent to a remote British island for a fictional reality TV show.
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The mini series stars Victoria Wright as April (cherubism), Kiruna Stamell as Carrie (dwarfism), Peter Mitchell as Dan (paraplegic), Sophie Woolley as Gabriella (deaf), Tim Gebbels as Tom (blind) and Mat Fraser as Will (thalidomide affected).
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Each episode focuses on one character's story, offering a fresh and humorous insight into their lives.Ìý The series also features cameos from Thomas Turgoose (This Is England, SomersTown), Mark Heap (Green Wing), Vicky McClure (This Is England) and William Gaunt (King Lear).
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From what we've heard Cast Offs will be provocative, challenging - and veryÌýfunny! It starts on 24th November at 11pm on Channel 4.
Some of you may remember that one of our earlier programmes in this series looked specifically at the problems caused for Deaf and Hard of Hearing pupils by poor classroom acoustics.
Well, today the Government has today agreed to take action on acoustics in new schools in England, in response to a campaign by the National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS).ÌýÌý
Acoustic testing will now be a contractual requirement for all new schools built under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. In addition, Local Authorities will not get funds for more schools unless those recently built have passed an acoustic test.
This breakthrough came in response to evidence provided by NDCS earlier this year that a large number of new mainstream schools do not comply with Government standards on acoustics. As a result, the schools are unsuitable learning environments for pupils and are unfit for educating children with a hearing impairment.
Great news - we'll keep you posted on further developments.
The See Hear team have just returned from a freezing cold weekend in Helsinki, Finland. Why were we there? We were filming with talented sign song duo Signmark. They've made loads of polished pop videos in sign language, and are so good at what they do that they've been signed up by Warner Brothers in Finland!
This is a behind the scenes video of their recent flashmob (see if you can spot our reporter, Amanda, in the crowd):
This particular video is fast becoming an office favourite too:
Keep an eye out for our upcoming Sign Songs special featuring Signmark...
We love people with a bit of talent. Whether it's on X Factor, Britain's Got Talent or even South Africa's Got Talent.
In fact we're particularly enjoying the SA programme, where a young Deaf boy with additional learning difficulties is dancing so well that young girls are falling head over heels in love with him.
For a heartwarming story look no further than this link:
See Hear meets Tracey Tiler, the deaf woman who's bringing up four kids while managing the career of a champion wrestler Sean Noone, also known as Sean Midnight.
Tracey's got wrestling in her blood, as she's also the daughter of Deaf wrestling legend Alan Kilby, previously on See Hear and the star of many a match against Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks!
We're finding out more about a crucial new health survey. All too many deaf and hard of hearing people have a horror story to tell about problems with communication when trying to make medical appointments or accessing treatment and vital medical information.
Campaigners at Sign Health believe that gathering accurate data about Deaf people's health and experiences with the NHS could be the best way to improve the situation. Find out more and sign up to the survey here:
And finally, in the second chapter of the Baby Diaries, a very pregnant Melissa ponders the question of how to look good when your waistline is expanding on a weekly basis...!
Heroes is a TV series which has been patchy at best. Season 1 was brilliant, the writers' strike-hit season 2 went off the rails a bit, season 3 pulled things back, and season 4 is looking VERY promising indeed.
Why's that? Well, in Season 4 Episode 3, we are introduced to a Deaf character called Emma, who cannot hear - but instead she 'sees' sounds.
This short clip looks very nicely done... and season 4 of Heroes starts on ´óÏó´«Ã½ TWO in January 2010!
Deanne's got a strong body of television work behind her already. See Hear believes her finest performance was as the Deaf wife in "87th Precinct: Lightning", a TV movie adaptation of an Ed McBain novel, starring opposite Randy Quaid, sadly not available on DVD. You could also try and seek out her TV series "Sue Thomas FB Eye", starring Deanne as an FBI agent aided by her faithful hearing dog.
Perhaps a UK remake starring Diana Martin or Rebecca-Anne Withey's not far off.
See Hear has been doing a lot of research and filming recently for an upcoming item on Deaf prisoners and their treatment within prisons in England and Wales. It's an important issue in the Deaf community, and that film will be coming very soon.
In the meantime, we found that it's also an issue in America, where many US Deaf prisoners face the same issues - isolation and lack of communication for starters:
It seems like a lifetime since London was announced as the host of the 2012 Olympics. Since then the country's had its ups and downs, but at least we seem to be on track for a memorable Games a couple of years hence.
If you're a Deaf or Disabled artist, you might be interested in Unlimited, which is a fund in connection with the 2012 Cultural Olympiad running alongside the games themselves.
If you're interested in finding out more, go to the official website and watch the subtitled information video:
Carson McCullers' 1940 novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, is famous in its use of a deaf character as its central narrator.
This makes adaptation of the novel as a play or film problematic, as the narrative 'voice' features heavily throughout. One US playwright has taken the controversial decision to have the deaf character narrate throughout... using a hearing actor.
Predictably this has met with outrage in the deaf community. Read the full New York Times articleÌýhere:
More and more arts venues and museums are providing captioned and interpreted events than ever before.
The South Bank Centre in London has been doing these for a while but getting information about where and when these were taking place has been very difficult - until now.
Clicking the below link will take you to a page where you can find and book tickets for these captioned events. See Hear went to one of these events recentlyÌýto listen to Apollo 11 Astronaut Buzz Aldrin talking about his experiences landing on the moon - and a good time was had by all!
Hello all - this is just a message to remind you all that the emergency text message service is still running, should you wish to take part.
It's very simple and all it requires is you to follow the instructions in our original blog post...
/blogs/seehear/2009/09/emergency_text_message_service.html
This week's See Hear has a maternity themed programme honouring the 2009 baby boom, which seems to be just as much a phenomenon in the deaf community as it is with hearing people.
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We meet Debbie Coletti, a deaf midwife, following her on her 12 hour shift at a maternity ward whereÌýbabies are delivered on a daily basis!Ìý
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This week's programme also sees the start of a new strand, The Baby Diaries, in which we follow a deaf mum-to-be, Melissa Mostyn-Thomas. In the first instalment Melissa is three weeks away from her due date and thinking about her birth plan.
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We also follow a remarkable 85-year-old hard of hearing man, who's determined to walk the Shakespeare's Way, all the way from Stratford-Upon-Avon to London, accompanied by his dog.
Matt Hamill was born deaf. Now he's a professional fighter in the UFC -- Ultimate Fighting Championship. At 6'1" and 205 pounds, Hamill has an 8-2-0 record as a UFC fighter (although some say that it should be 9-1-0 after a split decision versus Michael Bisping went against him).
They're now making a feature film about his life, with deaf actors playing all the deaf roles, and Hamill hopes the movie will serve as an inspiration to other deaf people.
"I really just want to be equal with hearing people. When I grew up I felt like I never fit in with those people. I felt really isolated. I felt the only way to be successful was to be involved with sports," he said.
Hamill is being portrayed by deaf actor Russell Harvard, who played the role of the adult H.W. Plainview in Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will be Blood.
The movie is called simply 'Hamill', and is currently shooting in Rochester. It will be entered in the Sundance film festival and hopefully will be in theaters at the end of 2010. Keep your eyes peeled for this one!
Find out more about the film at the official site:
Next week sees the arrival of a new Deaf Drama on the Community Channel and the BSLBT website. It's called Departure Lounge and was directed by , produced by David Horbury and written by Ìý- all ex employees of See Hear!
Having seen a sneak preview of the drama, we can tell you that there are some great actors in this one - Hal Draper, David Sands and a rising star in Abigail Gorman. For us though, the baby steals the show...ÌýWatch the trailer on facebook here:
To find out when it is being shown on the community channel (we hear it's on at 8am...), and to watch it online,Ìývisit the following website:
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As a follow up from our recent film about Gillian O'Hagan's hour on the plinth as part of Antony Gormley's One and Other project, we saw this article in the Guardian assessing the cultural and popular impact of the project.
It's thought provoking stuff and worth a read. Go on, click it:
If you missed Gillian on the plinth, you can watch it on iPlayer:
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This is one of the more unusual stories to land in the See Hear in tray.
A Deaf South African swimmer wins seven golds, but returns home to deafening silence... all because no-one mentioned it in the papers apparently.
Click this link to read more about this sad tale...
We thought you should meet Lee. He has Tourette's and Asperger's Syndrome, which means he has behavioural tics. He is also mad about British Sign Language, wants to become an interpreter and is starting a Deaf Studies Course at Bristol University.
Lee first became interested in signing when his parents used Makaton signing to communicate with him from a young age. After that he learned to fingerspell aged 8, and would point out landmarks on the street to his sister each day!
We think Lee is a very charming young man and his video diary is great fun to watch. It's subtitled too, so why not click the link below and find out more?
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You may remember that we've featured Galloway Wildlife Park in Scotland on See Hear in the past. It's run by a Deaf couple, John and Kathryn Denerley.
Last time we visited, there was lots of drama as two of their rare red pandas, a mother and cub, had gone missing. The adult red panda was found safe and well, but sadly it seems that after 18 months on the run, the cub died.
But it's not all sad news. Two twin red pandas were born at the wildlife centre earlier this year and are said to be doing very well indeed.
Read more on this story here:
Find out more about Galloway Wildlife park here:
This Saturday 10th October sees an event for young Deaf people organised by the BDA.
The event will be packed with live entertainment for all, film screenings (four short films made by young filmmakers), children's theatre from Krazy Kat Theatre Company, urban street dancing, art exhibition and much more.
For more details visit this link:
A new drama starring deaf teenagers from South London is airing on the community channel and online this week.
The Boy From Before is a four part series featuring secondary school pupils from Oak Lodge School in Balham, who collaborated with filmmakers to devise and write the script, acting alongside professional deaf actors.
Read more about it ...
Find out where you can watch it via this link:
