DEAF AWARENESS DAY ON SUNDAY 27TH NOVEMBER I am pleased to announce that the Deaf Awareness Day (DAD) was a successful day. It has been planned for 2 months by CBR and the Sign Language Support Group. Lots of people have put lot of hard work in the plan to ensure that the day will be successful. We have made lots of banners which it took us all week to make lot of Banners to be used during Deaf Awareness Day. We also planned programme, contacting TV and Newspaper regarding the day and we got 3 different responds from the TV to interview us. It was great to hear about TV being interested in Deaf issues. Ashton and I were asked to interview at NCN live news!! It was great but scary at the same time! We have been asked some questions about our present in Guyana and what we are hoping to achieve during our stay and what is our work projects providing to Guyana. We had Sean who is an interpreter who translated everything and it was good experience. The another two TV interviews was taken by Guyanese Deaf girl and Mr. Walcott and Monty (Interpreter) to discuss similar things and it is not life but went well too. Monty explained about how the interpreting works and Mr. Walcott talked about the Deaf Awareness Day and asked everyone to come to the day. The Deaf Awareness Day was full of activities from 10am until 4pm. The Day started with the Church Services that is provided by Guyana Deaf Missionary who have been running the church for the Deaf community for nearly a year. It contains lots of different activities which it is: - • Deaf Choir from Winspar Baptist Church • Celebrate one year anniversary wedding for the deaf couple • Small Bible reading from the Deaf Priest • Explaining the word 'AWARENESS' to everyone • Closing prayer from Lawrence (Interpreter and Revenard) The morning was full of the activities and everyone enjoyed the morning as it was very interesting and good impressions for the deaf community. Then we had lunch and the food was provided by Guyana Deaf Missionary and CBR to feed everyone. It was nice and we chatted about what will happen next which it is the main part of the day. It was a rally march from the church to National Park. It took us 20 minutes total to walk with lots of banners and placards. Lot of people watched us doing the rally march and some of us giving out the leaflet about the Deaf Awareness issues and Alphabet in Sign Language, It was good walk and we did walk on the busy roads so many cars and people saw the rally which it is good! The rally look very colourful with lots of different banners and the front banner is huge and it brings lots of impact to the rally. I was pleased with the way we rally from the church to the National Park. When we arrived in the National Park, we were joined with few more people who were already there to set up the place ready for the activities and few speeches. We all sat on the stand and getting ourselves comfortable for the speeches and present of the certifications for Sign Language Classes that have been run for almost two years by Lawrence and Mary Hallahan (who is also an interpreter for me and Ashton). We were disappointed with one thing that Ministry of Education guest speaker failed to attend to give the speech. But we didn't let it spoilt the day and we was pleased to have the National Advisor of CBR to give welcome speech and to congratulate the people who made the day happening which it was nice speech. Then it was Ashton's turn to give out the poem called "Empathy" and it is about the "Deaf World" which it can give the hearing people better view how the Deaf people feel in the "Hearing World" and it was very good poem. After Ashton finished his poem, it was my turn to come into the spotlight to speak about the history of British Deaf Awareness which I tell everyone what has happened in Britain and how we have changed the image of the Deaf Community over the time from over 20 years ago to now which we finally got the BSL recognized two years ago. The purpose of this speech was to tell everyone that we can't change everything overnight and it also give motivation to keep the Awareness going for long time and it will change over the time. Ashton and I showed the audience some of BSL which everyone was amazed to see the difference of BSL and ASL! It was good fun to show them. Everyone enjoyed the speeches which it is good to hear! After all the speeches, it was time for a snack which the parents of Sign Language support group made for everyone and it was delicious cook up and a cake! :D Also at the same time, the certification was presented to the people who attend to the sign language classes. The final session of the day was the activities and games that I made for the audience to take part which it is called the Fruit machine which we taught everyone the sign of 4 different fruits, then they had to get in 4 different group that contain one fruit per group. They had to stand in the circle and one person in the middle who will call out one fruit, the people with the fruit had to leave their space to find an empty space, the odd person out had to come in the middle to call out different fruit, the game continue for a while. It was good fun and everyone enjoyed the game. It was one of 3 different games that we played on the day. The day ended at half past 3 and everyone went home with a smile on their face which it shows that the day was successful and entertaining. I went home exhausted but really enjoyed the day and am pleased with the outcome of the plans. I start to plan for the Deaf Awareness Week which it will happen sometimes next year, possible in May or June before I leave Guyana. Hope u enjoyed reading the day of the Deaf Awareness! :D Miss u all Steven/xxxxxxxxxxxx