Doncaster Deaf Trust celebrate ten years of working with European partners

Teams at Doncaster Deaf Trust are celebrating working with European partners for over a decade to benefit the borough's deaf people.
By The Newsroom
Published 22nd Dec 2017, 08:58 BST
Updated 22nd Dec 2017, 09:00 BST
Doncaster Deaf Trust members on an Erasmus Plus visit. The Trust are celebrating working with European partners for over a decade to benefit the boroughs deaf people.Doncaster Deaf Trust members on an Erasmus Plus visit. The Trust are celebrating working with European partners for over a decade to benefit the boroughs deaf people.
Doncaster Deaf Trust members on an Erasmus Plus visit. The Trust are celebrating working with European partners for over a decade to benefit the boroughs deaf people.

The Trust is involved in various Erasmus Plus European projects, involving partners from a number of other European countries.

Among the projects is the Spread the Sign initiative, which is an international web based free translation tool for sign language.

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Liz Deakin from Doncaster Deaf Trust said: “We’ve been working with Spread the Sign since 2006 and have helped to develop this free online web tool which now features more than 20 different sign languages with over 300,000 signs and is supported by a Spread the Sign App which can be downloaded.

“Signs are shown as video clips and this is a fantastic resource for Deaf people wishing to travel or work abroad or for hearing people wanting to learn sign language.

“We are now also working with a further four international projects, all aimed at helping Deaf people in European countries.

“We have found working with partners from other countries an invaluable experience and we are creating both online and written resources that will help people for years to come.”

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The Deaf Trust is also working with Spread Share/Spread Lesson, a continuation of the work of Spread the Sign. This new project will further develop the Google Map feature and will include signed videos of European cities towns, national landmarks and places of historical interest.

A third project, Give me a Sign, aims to create a sign language programme in Portuguese, Turkish, English (BSL) and Austrian.

This is in line with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages which is an international standard for describing language ability. This will allow users in their own sign language to learner another foreign sign language.

Another project the Trust is involved in, Deaf Learning, aims to create a national written language programme in English, Polish, Austrian, Lithuanian and Italian at levels A1 to B1 for deaf learners to help improve their literacy skills.

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A final project, Deaf Guides, is a scheme which aims to provide a Tour Guide certificated course for deaf and hearing impaired in Turkey.

For further information about Doncaster Deaf Trust visit www.deaf-trust.co.uk

For more information about Spread The Sign, visit www.spreadthesign.com.