Go see: The first ever Deaf Careers Fair, in London on Wednesday next week

Deaf Unity is running the first ever Deaf Careers Fair and it takes place next week, on Wednesday 7 May at the Greater London Assembly’s City Hall Offices.

This is a major initiative to address the chronic unemployment and underemployment of the deaf community.

The fair is the result of extensive efforts to develop good working relationships between employers within the Deaf and Hearing worlds. Its innovative approach means that, in addition to the normal range of stalls normally present at mainstream careers fair, it also includes a series of workshops addressing employment issues such as interviewing skills. Those workshops will inform both the deaf and hearing communities on such issues.

The success of Deaf Unity’s Learners conference in May 2013 highlighted the need to address the challenges for Deaf people moving from an academic learning environment into the world of employment, in particular, the lack of accessible resources to careers advice and role models emerged as a potential barrier to enable deaf people to move into employment.

So many existing mainstream careers fairs provide a limited range of communication support for deaf people to learn about their different industries of interest. Moreover, those fairs do not tackle issues specific for deaf people or to enable dialogue on examples of good practice.

Deaf Unity’s CEO Abdi Gas said:

“Deaf Unity is proud to announce this major innovative event which is not only the first in the UK, but also potentially in Europe. The rationale behind this event is one of the many reasons for having established Deaf Unity. This event has been entirely deaf inspired, deaf led, deaf organised, and deaf presented. It is a true reflection of what the united and supported deaf community is able to achieve and an example of the vast range of the underutilised skills and talents that exists within the deaf community. Such successes can only be achieved through partnership working with the wider community.”

For more information, please visit the Deaf Careers Fair page. To book, follow this link to the Eventbrite bookings page. The contact person is Alasdair.Grant@deafunity.org.