We've not done a Photo Friday for a while, but thought we'd do a Photo Friday Special:
This photo was taken at Mary Hare Grammar School, presumably early 1990s. Does anyone know the exact date?
Does anyone recognise who's in the photo? ::evil laugh::
Photo credit: BBC Stills Archive
Back Row: Tim Loughton MP, (someone from the press), Francis Murphy, Gordon Brown, Jonathan Isaac, Jeff McWhinney, Andrew Adonis.
Front row: Rosie Cooper MP, Malcolm Bruce MP, Susan Daniels, Tom Levitt MP
Coming ASAP: More about what happened at the meeting with Gordy. Stick with GOD - bringing news to the masses when others don't!
- Jen
See also:
Mixed bag
Parliament: Prime Minister agrees to meet a BSL delegation
Government response on BSL & the UN Convention of Human Rights for Disabilities
Photo Friday: Keep Marching
Parliament: BSL on websites & recognition of BSL
The state of things ....
So, was the BSL Recognition campaign all a waste of time?
Taken from BSL March 2003.
Who's who?
Photo credit: Charlie Swinbourne
Do you know which actor is getting their make up done? Do you recognise the make-up artist?
Psst - If you really need to cheat actor wise, check out the latest promotional poster.
Don't forget, Deaffest is from the 23-25 November at Wolverhampton.
See also:
Four Deaf Yorkshiremen, A Trailer
Taken at BSL March 1999 (wow, 8 years ago now?!) by an unknown photographer. These kids signed a poem called 'Sisters', if I remember correctly, and one of them has just written a really cool blog post which can be found here*.
Who are they?
* Click on the red bit! It's a link!
Can you name anyone?
Photo credit: Colin Singh
Do you agree or not? Please use the comment box.
Recognise Sign Language in Copenhagen
Hooray for the Danish Deafies who marched last weekend!
Who's who?
Recognise anyone?
Can anyone say anything about this photo?
Can you name everyone?
Can anyone identify people in this photo? Its a bit small, so you might want to look at a larger version here.
Incidentally, we're desperate for some new photos. If you've got any, please wing them our way. We will credit you. Thanks!
Recognise anyone?
Does anyone know of a website link for this centre?
I generally put my money where my mouth is, so went along to the first day of this year's BDA Congress in Southport yesterday to show my support etc. Unfortunately I can't go today, but hope this post gives readers some idea of what it was like. The theme focussed on education and our rights through language and cultural equality.
As someone who's been to about 10 BDA Conferences / Congresses throughout my life, I was saddened to see only about 70 people were there. However, this actually made the whole thing feel more intimate - when Dr Paddy Ladd got up on stage for his paper, he said it was a shame there were so few of us, but that meant each of us was "doubly important" - cool way of looking at it!
Indeed, I didn't realise at first, but there was a definite air of informality about the whole thing; there were NO suits, NO grand speeches with flashy PowerPoints and NO BDA staff rushing around with clipboards. In fact, I don't think I saw any BDA staff at all, except one. It seemed to be being run by volunteers, which kind of brought the BDA back to its roots, perhaps. The atmosphere was humble and almost apologetic; new BDA Chair, Francis Murphy was open and honest throughout, and kept apologising for the lack of publicity and countless other things.
I have to say I enjoyed the day I spent at the Congress - the BDA deserves to be praised for managing to pull it off despite the hard time they are going through right now.
David Muir - Doncaster School for the Deaf and a father
The first paper, Bilingual Education: Why it's the best option and how it can be improved, was by David Muir, who is a father of two Deaf girls and works at Doncaster School for the Deaf. David made it clear he was speaking in a personal capacity and his paper was generally good and informative and very PRO 'proper' bilingualism (not just pretend bilingualism where teachers can't sign fluently etc), but went on rather too long, I am afraid.
The main points David made were that the three main problems with Deaf education are that it leads to the high possibility of mental health problems, low achievement and low self esteem and self confidence. Notably, he said, Deaf people should control Deaf education. Finally! A hearing educator finally said that in public!
Dr Paddy Ladd
Next up was Dr Paddy Ladd, with a paper on Deaf Culture, Deafhood and Deaf Education. Watching Paddy made me feel more politically motivated than I have in a long time! It's just a shame there weren't more people there to watch him, because God knows, the UK Deaf community could do with a dose of political motivation at the moment. That and a kick up the arse!
Paddy talked about the disastrous effects of colonalism, and how Deaf people's identities would be stronger if young Deaf people's education introduced them to Deaf culture, thus developing their Deafhood at an earlier age than now. He discussed how Deaf educators are more likely to use Cultural Holism when teaching Deaf kids, treating them as whole people, and acknowledging how the Deaf and hearing worlds are different, explaining what it means, how to live and how they have a place in the world.
Paddy said we need to be stronger and work with our hearing allies without being mistrustful of them taking over. He also said we need more hearing allies - largely hearing parents (90% of us have them, anyway!) - the media is far more likely to listen to radical hearing parents than Deafies having a demo! We need more action, a BDA education campaign group, youth camps and youth leadership programmes, volunteers and so on. We need many things!
I hope the BDA listens to Paddy because he signed a lot of sense.
Professor Bencie Woll
After lunch, I missed the first part of Bencie Woll's paper on bilingualism - I also missed the title because it wasn't in the programme, but it seemed to be a linguistic perspective. Not really my cup of tea, I'm afraid, as I'm not really a linguistic person and Bencie was a bit academic, talking about the brain and stuff!
However, I was really pleased to see Bencie signing for herself, which is sadly a rare thing for hearing people do to... that was cool. In summary, she talked about how people in the Deaf community are bilingual even though they think they aren't, and gave some facts about language acquisition and the education of Deaf children, including how BSL actually helps English literacy, not the opposite, as the oralists claim. In conclusion, Bencie said that Deaf people should have the opportunity to be bilingual. Too right!
Workshops
Last off, I went to Paddy's workshop on Deafhood (the other one was on linguistics) which was quite interesting, with people talking about how the DDA is actually rather crap - some people said they liked it but I am not one of them! - and discussing how the BDA could offer more support for parents of Deaf children.
BDA involvement with UKCoD
The only thing that pissed me off all day was when Francis mentioned that the BDA is thinking about re-joining the chocolate teapot of British deaf organisations, UKCoD. Yes, I know many people would agree with this, but again I am not one of them, and I stood up to tell Francis that. Apparently UKCoD is desperate to have more "Deaf" input - how very funny since they stole our BSL recognition campaign(!) - and have begged (??) the BDA to reconsider. However Francis said they will make sure they have more teeth this time round and I sincerely hope so because UKCoD has a big jawline. AGH.
Whatever. The BDA needs support at the moment and I hope that there are more than 70 people there today. Wish I could be one of them but I cannot. And I really wish more people would do more supportive things for the BDA rather than sit on their arses and slag them off! They need us now, probably more than ever before. As the late great Dorothy Miles said, and was quoted many times yesterday;
The BDA is you and me, and together we will fight for equality!
Coming very soon:
* An exclusive BSL statement from Francis Murphy, BDA Chair (shame on See Hear for not going up to film!!)
* An interview with the magnificient Dr Paddy Ladd, also brought to you on video.
Jen
Recognise anyone?! Congress news coming SOON - watch this space!
At Cardiff, 1993.
Can you recognise anyone in the photo? And do you have any old photos for us?
Photo Credit: Zoe Fudge
Courtyard Bar, Ashbourne Road, Derby, Summer 2002. So how many people can you name?
Photo credit, with thanks to: James Kearney.
Can you name everyone in this picture?
Does anyone remember what year this was? Who's sitting in the middle of the road? If you want a bigger picture, click onto the photo which will take you over to Flickr, then onto 'all sizes'.
Go on, who can name everyone?
Got any photos - recent ones will do. Send them in.
Who can recognise who, for the benefit of international readers.
Do you have any photos? We'd like to publish these here.
Its blurry, sorry. Taken in Scotland in 1995. Who remembers going in the minibus to get there, and how over full it was?
We are really going to run out of photos soon. If you want Photo Friday to continue, please can you donate some photos. Anything will do, we need variety. Old ones, new ones, groups, politics, social, etc. Anything.
Can you pick anyone out in this? For that matter, do you have any school photos that could be scanned?
Who remembers this? If you were there, what did you do?
Photos! We want them.
Got any better BSL March ones than this? What about local marches. Perhaps campaigning in another country. Prove it, please send us your photos and we promise we'll give you credit.
Taken in Washington DC, 2002. A Surduslaw get together. More tricky: who can name everyone?
Happy Bank Holiday weekend everyone! International readers, we get Monday off in the UK.
And yes, we're looking for photos with an international flavour too. So if you have any, you know what to do.
X rated? Any takers for filling in the comment box, to guess who's who?
Photo nag: we need donated photos! :-)
Taken in May 2001, and so applicable 6 years later. Does anyone ever learn?
See also:
Hanson Green: Deaf Recruitment Experts?
Chair BoT @ RNID only advertised in mainstream press
An international blogger tries to explain re RNID
RNID: Banging some drum, and who hears it?
John Low and James Strachan resign from RNID
Low: RNID CEO needn't be deaf or hard of hearing
John Low the soap star!
Photo credit: James Kearney
Since May Day is seen as a traditional day for activism in the UK, here is the late Richard Bullard, a mighty activist if there ever was one, on a road block. This photo was taken after the BSL March 2001, and soon after, Richard sustained serious injuries when a group of cops unwisely picked him up and tried to pull him out of his wheelchair. During the struggle, he was dropped, and hit his head on the kerb. It was a really scary experience and we spent several hours in hospital with him. Thankfully, he was OK but it didn't do him much good.
Not enough people know about the massive amount of support DAN gave the BSL recognition campaign, and a few other campaigns too, including anti-CIs. Some Deafies joined DAN too, but not a lot seems to be happening on the DAN front at the moment, as far as I know.
Richard in particular was a very pro-Deaf Danner, and was really, really disgusted by oralism, and by how his young (hearing) daughter was taught BSL at school, but Deaf kids weren't allowed to learn. It made him really angry, and we'd discuss that kind of thing for hours. He also always, always beat me at pool. He's the only person I've ever met who can hold a pool cue with one hand, look away from the table (smirking at me) and pot the black, all at the same time... agh!
I still miss Richard, many people do. It would make him so happy if we UK-based Deafies got off our asses and got back onto the roads.
Happy Bank Holiday weekend, for everyone in the UK.
Jen
At Cardiff - who's who?
You know how much people love looking at old photos. Got any? Please donate.
Photo credit: James Kearney.
Who can tell the story behind this picture?
We want more political photos. We will credit you.
Mary Hare Grammar School, 1991. Use the comments box to name people in the picture. Who can recognise everyone?
Do you have any old photos that you could scan so we could upload here? We will credit the source.
BDA gathering, at Montreal (2003).
Happy Easter!
Otherwise, we are looking for scanned photos. There's only so many photos we have, and we want variety. We know how much people love looking at old photos. Do you have any photos you could donate? We will credit the source.
BSL March 2003, London. This photo was taken from the back of a police van!
FYD used to take over Adventure International for a week in August. This was my group at Bude back in '95. What a happy looking lot! Who recognises who?
What's really scary, I was an adult back then, and these young people are now past university and in careers of their own. It makes me feel at least 90.
So do you recognise anyone? That's what the comment box is for.