Liam O’Dell wins Young Freelancer Award for covering #WhereIsTheInterpreter

We’re delighted to report that Liam O’Dell, a regular writer for this site, has won the Young Freelancer Award at the Freelancer Awards!

Liam won the award mainly for his work reporting on #WhereIsTheInterpreter, and also submitted work covering YouTube’s deprecation of community captions for the judges’ consideration, too.

You can see some of Liam’s articles on #WhereIsTheInterpreter for this site by clicking here.

The awards were held by the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed (IPSE). Liam was also shortlisted in the Covid-19 Success Story category.

Here he is with his award!

Liam said:

“I am still in shock from receiving this award, as I honestly thought any of the other finalists would be up on the stage instead, so a huge congratulations to them, and a thank you to the judges and IPSE for this honour.

As I said last night, this is not my award, but the Deaf community’s award, as we all came together during a devastating public health crisis to demand the Government makes its Covid communications accessible to Deaf people.

I owe a huge thank you to Lynn Stewart-Taylor for her incredible work leading the campaign, and to The Limping Chicken for the platform to report on the incredible work of Deaf campaigners holding the Government to account on this important issue.”

The judges said:

“Passionate about their community and a huge advocate for challenging the government when it missed the mark, Liam is the definition of “wise beyond their years.” The judges were impressed to see a young freelancer challenging the status quo and supported their story with an incredibly strong portfolio of work.”

We’re very proud. Well done Liam!