Exciting times. The National Deaf Children’s Society has now formally launched “The Buzz“, the first ever website dedicated to deaf young people.
Clearly, I’m now too old to use the website, as demonstrated by my use of the term “funky”, for probably for the first time since 1994. But for deaf youngsters aged 8 to 18, there’s now a new opportunity to meet other deaf young people, speak out and to get information about being deaf, presented in an accessible way.
This matters because 90% of deaf children are born to families with no experience of deafness. And around 85% attend mainstream schools. In many cases, they may be the only deaf child in the school. In my school, there was one other deaf person but that was my sister but she was way too cool to hang out with me. So the Buzz is filling a massive need for many deaf young people out there.
I am told that if you’re over 12 and register, you get a free t-shirt and some other freebies. The whole thing is also intended to be deaf-led, so deaf youngsters will be using the website to have their say and tell everyone what’s important to them.
If you know of or work with any deaf young people, please do spread the word and encourage them to “check it out” (as I believe the youngsters say, these days).
For real. Word out.
