Chairperson's note

Since I have been Chair for the last 4yrs, I have seen many changes and achievements happen, Co.deaf was formed in 2000 by a group of members with various hearing losses, from mild to severe, and all members have different communication needs, using BSL Interpreters, Lipspeakers and Note Takers.

In the last year, we have successfully achieved employing our first worker, a Project Development Officer Richard Moriarty, who has made a tremendous change to our lives being part of our group, it has eased the worry of members whom are volunteers struggling to cope with the funding process which Richard is now doing and taking on board other tasks.

Richard has achieved funding from the Heritage Lottery, our first large funding win, we are all over the moon with this and we are all getting stuck in to our first large Project to develop a History of Deaf Archives in Durham…..

There have been visits to Washington Wild Fowl for families of deaf children which were enjoyed even though the weather was wet!  A day out to the Archery Group in Gilesgate was enjoyed by all, also there are a few more days out planned for the New Year and it shows how life is improving for those who were restricted socially.

Also this year has seen changes to improve the standards of access to PCT, Police, Fire, Council Members, Hospitals, and many more, we aim to reach out and have businesses trained to be more Deaf Aware for the D/deaf community to be able to access all information and public buildings at ease, this work is ongoing and it does take time to get the success as possibly can.

Durham County has a large population of people with a variety of hearing loss and its important that this is covered and to enable those people to have a good independent and quality of life to be equal to others.