Meet: Chyanne Golding, Cambridgeshire’s Deaf Teen of the Year

Last year, Chyanne Golding from Peterborough in Cambridgeshire won the first ever Deaf Teen of the Year award. As the awards come around again and the organisers look for nominations, Chyanne tells us all about what the award meant to her and how she won it.

Being the first ever Cambridgeshire Deaf Teen of the year made me feel so proud. I was also proud of all the other deaf people who also brought me into it and helped the charity like my friend, Katie Bocking. I did everything I could to put a smile on deaf people’s faces and help them to achieve their confidence and make them proud of who they are. I did quite a lot of volunteering for PDDCS (Peterborough and District Deaf Children’s Society) and the reason I want to help out is because when I was at primary school, I’d made quite a lot of friends but during the conversation I’d missed out quite a lot. This is because my friends didn’t realise that I only can lip read so they kept turning their head away and talk all at once.

So it was a difficult time which made me felt left out and I started to lose my confidence with hearing people. When I started my secondary school,  Jack Hunt School, I’ve met a few other deaf students there and it made me realise that it is important that every deaf child should feel the confidence to be around hearing people and their community. That is how I started to join in to volunteer and help deaf children to understand. As soon as I heard my name during the award at the moving on event, I was absolutely shocked, my heart was pounding. I thought ‘me?!’ I wasn’t expecting it to be me but before they said my name, they showed a presentation of each person nominated and of what they’ve done and achieved. When I saw my part about me,

I didn’t realise that I’ve done so much for the charity. After winning this award, I felt like I want to do more volunteering and fundraising to help out and inspire more deaf children to get involve in PDDCS clubs and other events.

Here is Chyanne’s citation in full:

Would you like to nominate someone? Deaf teenagers aged 14-18 living in Cambridgeshire are eligible and nominations close 30th August 2013. Nomination form and information on www.hitgroupcambridge.co.uk

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