2022 - what a year for the Deaf community!

It's Christmas time and we want to look back and celebrate the growth and achievements both personally and of the deaf community.

Like any small business, it has been a year of hard work! However, with the loyal support of our clients and customers and their decision to choose us over and above our competitors, and the strong confidence we have in our business, we have been able to beat the post-pandemic odds and grow even stronger!

We are proud of all of you: clients, customers, social media followers, service users, and of course our wonderful staff who really do “make it happen”. We appreciate your loyalty, we value your opinion, and we consider you as part of our community.

For all this, we invite you to recap the amazing monthly milestones that have marked the year, and what we have achieved together:

JANUARY

• After a very long ride and lots of hard work, we reopened our Job Club for Deaf BSL users, and during 2022. We have supported 30 deaf users, and 3 got a full time job!

• The BSL Bill passed its Second Reading in the House of Commons. This was a massive step forward for the deaf community and BSL users everywhere.

FEBRUARY

• We shared our most popular Reel of 2022. We highlighted that the Sign Language Interpreters (SLI) must interpret everything that is said and everything that they hear, including background noises. Along with this Reel we also shared the link to our guidelines on how to work with an SLI. We reached 229K people and got 1,318 engagements (likes, comments, saves, and shares).

MARCH

• We witnessed the historic moment for the Deaf community as the BSL Bill passed its 3rd reading in the House of Commons unopposed. Well done all involved!

• We jumped into Memes on Instagram. We decided to take this social phenomenon to represent the thoughts and feelings of our audience (sign language interpreters, deaf community, etc...). You felt it and it brought lots of social engagement, and good fun too.

APRIL

• British Sign Language (BSL) was set to be legally recognised after passing final Parliamentary stage - The BSL Bill became law!

MAY

• We got a new home! Having spent time since the lockdown all working from home, we finally moved into a new office in Gravesend. A welcome change to get back to what we know, working together as a team! See our office HERE.

• For Deaf Awareness Week we designed a space in our website with lots of free resources such as educational posters, essential British Sign Language (BSL) vocabulary videos, and loads of very interesting facts about the Deaf community. It's still available, do you want to have a look? Click HERE!

• We saw how The Virgin Media Baftas #MustSeeMoment went to Rose Ayling-Ellis and Giovanni Pernice for their truly memorable Strictly routine. Congratulations!

• Model, professional dancer, and influencer Natasha Ghouri, 'Tasha', was the first ever deaf contestant of the ITV2 dating show Love Island. It's wonderful to see yet more representation of the deaf community on mainstream TV.

JUNE

• The life-saving emergency VRS App 999BSL was live! Download 999BSL App HERE.

• We invested in the company and joined Gravesend BNI. A great place to be - connections, business and lots of enjoyment to boot!

• We shared our most read blog post in 2022: 9 hand gestures easily misunderstood abroad. You read it more than 543 times!

JULY

• We were asked to provide BSL support for one of the most stylish brands ever: Gucci. Such an honour!

• Time for a giveaway! We ran a very popular raffle and gave to four lucky winners a copy of the last book of Sara Nović, True Biz.⁠

AUGUST

• British Sign Language signers were called to apply to become a member of the BSL Advisory Board. ⁠A great opportunity to help Government services to be more accessible to Deaf people.

SEPTEMBER

• Deaf Umbrella’s team extended our sincere condolences to the entire Royal Family for the loss of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

• SignUp Captions launched free BSL interpretation on select Disney+ movies in the UK.

• We launched an online staff training calendar with 10 workshops to provide our staff members with the necessary skills and knowledge for their current role during the upcoming months.

OCTOBER

• After 8 years of campaigning, RNID announced that NHS hearing aids are now available for free to anyone who needs them in the UK, removing the policy to not offer the technology to those with mild and moderate hearing loss in North Staffordshire.

• We started to support Katie Littlejohns' petition Fund free BSL Courses for parents or guardians of deaf children. The campaign managed to reach more than 10K accounts on Instagram, and which is more important, the petition hit the 10,000 signatures!

NOVEMBER

• We re-designed our website.

• The Government's BSL Advisory Group is going to be co-chaired by Craig Crowley, Action Deafness CEO.

DECEMBER

• It's the end of the year and we are supporting Santa Paws – The 12 Jogs of Christmas Challenge lead by Hearing Dogs for Deaf People. During this month you can run, jog or walk 12 times and get sponsored to raise vital funds to help deaf people leave loneliness behind. You are still on time to sign up! Click HERE.

• We say goodbye to 2022 and we will temporarily close from the 23rd of December until we return to the office on the 3rd January. We are grateful to all our clients for their trust and for choosing us. We look forward to the New Year, when we hope for even bigger and better things, offering the same high quality standards and providing you the very best support.

Deaf Umbrella Team