Hot on the heels of deafPLUS (who launched their own election manifesto last week), the British Deaf Association have launched their General Election manifesto, complete with BSL videos.
The manifesto and information about how to use it have each been released as videos, which can be seen below (or click here for the manifesto and here for the ‘how to’ video):
On their site, the BDA list the policies which they think are important, and these include:
UK Sign Language Act – along the lines of the BSL (Scotland) Act 2015 to ensure “that access to public services and information using sign language is included in all future plans by public bodies.”
Deaf children having a bilingual and bicultural education – aiming “to ensure that all parents and/or carers of deaf children are made aware of local BSL/ISL facilities such as BSL/ISL classes through inclusion in the Local Offer as required by the Children and Families Act 2014.”
Fairer Assessments for PIP and Access to Work for Deaf people – “to ensure the most vulnerable do not lose out on their rightful entitlements.”
Video Relay Services – giving Deaf people more access to video sign language interpretation, and having this “embedded in legislation.”
Fair and independent research on Deaf education – “used to develop future policy to improve the life-chances of all deaf children in the UK.”
Read the BDA manifesto by clicking here.
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Sandra in India
May 3, 2017
Wonderful to watch Ashley!
SO crystal clear!
Toby Dawson
May 3, 2017
PIP is devolved to the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government have recently pledged to ban private companies carrying out assessments which is excellent news.
I mean, the BDA are encouraging people in Scotland to show their manifesto.
It would have been nice if they did a BDA Scotland version acknowledging that there is a Scottish Parliament.
For example, a BDA Scotland manifesto could have included broadcasting which is currently reserved to Westminster.
The Scottish Deaf Community have nothing to date in terms of televised sign language output being made on a regular basis.
How can the Scottish Deaf community feel that they are capable of being equal citizens in the media world when they have literally zilch.
Television is a crucial medium, even more for sign languages nowadays.
It’s not healthy for the Scottish Deaf Community to be reliance on another country for their television coverage and not forgetting that any programmes shown on BBC Scotland et al will not be interpreted *unless* it is shown elsewhere too.
The BDA are now pushing for a BSL Act from Westminster and rightly so after seeing Scotland leading the way since seeing an Act for the language of Gaelic which in turn inspired people to push for a Scottish BSL Act.
Why shouldn’t we push for our own Scottish Deaf television programme being made on a regular basis?
It would have been an extremely popular manifesto if the BDA came up with that for Scotland.