The Life & Deaf ‘Include me in the world’ webcast is now online!

In just 15 minutes the webcast gives the viewer a chance to join us for the start, middle and end of our UK tour in Heidi, the stunning poetry-covered camper van!

This short documentary includes footage of the Sign Good Morning campaign featuring on London Underground CBS Outdoor screens and on BBC Big Screens, as well as interviews with the team and with audiences along our way.

lifeanddeaf.co.uk/videos

For a summary of tour photographs and feedback, click here.

GENERAL GORDON SQUARE, WOOLWICH, LONDON

24th of July, what an amazing weather! Hold on a minute, is it really last day of tour today?! Already the tour is ending, we have so much energy to make the last day worthwhile, oh how time flies!

It’s going to be great to be back and see everyone that has been waiting for us. We can’t wait to get home and get some sleep yet we know for sure we will miss each other lots. Another thing we are looking forward to is the balloon floating in the sky.

Wow, what a lucky bunch are we to have the hot sunny weather on our side, after hearing that there were thunderstorms last night. There were so many people on General Gordon Square where the main transport links are based. We set up the square with lovely decorations including multi-coloured balloons and bunting. It was beautiful!

Lots of people were sitting in the square with the BBC Big Screen in front of them broadcasting ‘That’s not all of me’, our pop songs signed in BSL by deaf youths and Sign Good Morning clips.

We got paparazzi all ready for us when we came back in Heidi including Greenwich Time press, Remark’s the Hub which will be broadcasted on the Community Channel in few weeks time, and Real Transfer who been doing a lot of filming of the tour and the Sign Good Morning campaign – the webcast will be on our website at the end of August.

Myself and Kayleigh performed the poetry which were delivered in BSL and spoken to ensure everyone has the access and it shows there are variety of deafness out there.

We then read out the messages that people from the tour we met from the balloon tags to share with everyone. It was quite emotional for everyone, as we took turns to read the messages, the rest of the team released 10 balloons at a time with messages are already attached for people out there to receive it and come to learn how people truly feel about deafness.

This was the loveliest moment of the day to watch the balloons float in the air. Making us realised we have achieved a lot in order to share thoughts and feelings in this way, and make people feel to ‘include me in the world’ is succeeding.

There were passerby children who are hearing and joined to use the magnetic board. Also, an elderly man who told me he’s an writer and gave us some of his poetry so that we could put this on our website.

The police wardens around the square we’re seen teaching themselves to sign basic everyday words using the Life & Deaf Deaf Awareness cards. I then went towards them to help how it is signed and if they understand how it is signed, the woman said ‘it is very clear how to sign it and useful’.

As the day was ending, I had an urge to go into the Tesco and continue giving freebies and spreading deaf awareness there! It is sad to see the tour ending, however the good news is that the website is an ongoing so keep posting more and continue to spread the news about the Sign Good Morning campaign with everyone you know.

Thank you everyone for getting involved and supporting us, hope you enjoyed as much as we did but don’t forget us and keep this site bookmarked!

Blog entry by Mayuri Hirani, Life & Deaf poet on tour

EXETER ROYAL ACADEMY FOR DEAF EDUCATION

The assembly at the Exeter Royal Academy school for Deaf was amazing as we did our part in sharing poetry, films, discussion of our memories of life about deafness. The school students also shared poetry of their own, presented individually and in group.

They presented their poems again later on outside to be submitted on our website to share with the world through signing. The children have also engaged so much into expressing a lot in different way that works for them.

The young children started off producing their poetry on the magnetic board in a form of story and ended it as ‘to be continued…’ for the next group to continue the poetry by adding their own to it. In the end it turned into a beautiful story.

The groups then worked as a team in the same way but tried on the blackboard by adding their touch in turns to fill up the whole board.

They all tried expressing and learning through the use of iPads in Heidi the camper van.

Two particular students Kallum and Rock from year 11 wanted to express themselves more to make sure everyone knows. They filmed themselves describing their life’s ups and downs.

EXETER VALE TESCO EXTRA

Getting all the goodies kit prepared in the trolley and achieve my goal from yesterday for the wine aisle. 1st attempt failed so decided to go around the successful areas that I picked up from yesterday in Bristol which was true. However, it was coming close to having an hour left and so I went in wine aisle for 2nd attempt. Seeing a man looking for wine, seeing him moving got me thinking he’s going to leave, I speeded up the trolley and caught up with him! Yaaaay my goal has been achieved only to find out he has seen our setup from Bristol yesterday. There’s me thinking at least we got a customer interested who is partially deaf himself but for my goal doesn’t count as he was with us yesterday and at same time it counts double!

Overall, each customers actually gave up at least 7 minutes of their time and discuss more and explaining their thoughts into this. One of them believes ‘…we are just lazy not learning to sign. We should make effort and the signing cards are very useful…’.

We did a live performance to some people as they requested, which had an impact on their perspective on deafness.

A paramedic man asked for more resources, telling me all the goodies I had in trolley were not even enough for himself and his colleagues, they would be so keen!

Overall we had a fantastic visit to mark our final Tesco stop in the tour!

Blog entry by Mayuri Hirani, Life & Deaf poet on tour

ELMFIELD SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF, BRISTOL

Arriving to setup in the car park of the school, we already had head turned from the students and staff, whilst waiting for the primary school children to arrive for the assembly. We delivered a presentation with sharing poetry, which were;

Listen not with your ears

Hand Glider

Unknown Silence

Why am I deaf?

We then showed the webcast where they all recognised Richard Carter, a member of staff in the school who was involved with performance from the launch 2006 and last year 2012 at Southbank hall. The children shared their feelings about currently wearing cochlear implants, hearing aids, and those who don’t wear any of them expressed how they wished to be able to hear.

The children then decided to get involved with the magnetic poetry board using the words laid out for them, but we then noticed some of them don’t feel comfortable in using the words and instead expressed through signing. Few of them did create individually, and some produced by working together along with Richard Carter to give them a little encouragement as a push. This led to more other students to create their own through same method.

Everyone joined in a big group to sign Good Morning, in their own style, and some done through a mini role-play.

BRISTOL EAST TESCO EXTRA

We had a perfect spot near the walkway in the car parking area, close to the entrance of the supermarket. We have attracted so many customers where I carried on making the use of the Tesco’s trolley and caught many customers who were genuinely interested asking for more resources and information.

With the use of trolley, few things I have picked up were particular most successful aisles were the beauty, pharmacy, fish, fruits and vegetables area. However, in the wine aisle it wasn’t successful at all, every customer in that aisle showed no interest not just from my 1st attempt but 2nd and 3rd attempt as well!

Failing 3 attempts of getting customers interested has got me thinking of a challenge – I set myself a goal for tomorrow, which is…

… to get at least one customer interested in the wine aisle. An imaginary devil mini-me on my shoulder saying ‘it will be tough’ whilst the angel mini-me on other side saying ‘you can do it, don’t give up’!

Blog entry by Mayuri Hirani, Life & Deaf poet on tour 

NOTTINGHAM BEESTON TESCO EXTRA

We are Nottingham today!

This morning we all had a lazy morning and have breakfast together and talk about how the week went. We all love Mayuri idea of walking around the isles with the shopping trolley full of freebies! 

We thought it was very successful so we decided to use that method again in Tesco!

We arrive in Tesco and set up in the upper car park so that all of the shoppers could look up and see Heidi the camper van!

We met the Mayor of Nottingham who is a such a lovely women. She was telling me and Mayuri about she got a deaf friend and she love what we doing with our project. We get to perform our poem in front of her and she love that too. She look at the Heidi, the iPads and the resources and she found them all interesting.

We also taught more staff to sign good morning as well as the children and the parent. We also taught the police officer of the community to sign and gave out resources to him. They all was very nice and willing to learn. We also use Mayuri method again in Tesco.

We loved meeting local people – lots of children enjoyed the iPads games, videos and websites. Two little boys loved pretending to drive Heidi the camper van with Martha who is the youngest member of the Life & Deaf team!

When we finish Tesco we all head off to Jane house for a cup of tea before they all travel to Bristol while me, Mayuri and Jane stay at Jane house for the night then travel to Bristol tomorrow late afternoon to meet the other.

We’ll be back with the blog on Monday!

Blog entry by Kayleigh Goacher, Life & Deaf poet on tour

ABBEYDALE TESCO SUPERSTORE, SHEFFIELD 

Wow two week gone already and now we safety arrive in Sheffield.

We got another day with the sun and it very hot, hopefully we all won’t turn into red lobster when we arrive in Woolwich next Wednesday!

This afternoon is different than any other day because today we not visiting any school but we are visiting the youth club in the evening after Tesco. In Tesco we taught lots of people to sign good morning for example we taught ambulance men, Tesco staff, car wash guys, children and parents. They all have a good attitude and willing to learn to sign good morning.

Mayuri discover a new method to try get more people to learn to Sign Good Morning and that is to go inside Tesco with the trolley full of freebies and talking to the people who is in the same aisle with her. This was very successful because she never got one no , it was 100% yes all the time.

We also have another good way to bring poetry to Tesco so me and Mayuri perform our poem in Tesco store or car park so people can watch and quite of lots of them actually stay and watch so that was good.

SHEFFIELD DEAF CHILDREN’S SOCIETY

In the evening we visit the deaf children society which is a youth club for deaf children. We perform our poem and then show them our film as well as the Glasgow deaf theatre film ‘Star Gazer’. After that we did the chalk board and the magnetic board as well as the iPad in the Heidi. All the children and their parent was engage with the activities and learn new thing.

Today it have given me opportunities to interact with very young children and I learn many skills through working them for example communication skills – I learnt I have to explain thing in a simple way so that they can understand what to do.

Blog entry by Kayleigh Goacher, Life & Deaf poet on tour 

ST JOHN’S CATHOLIC SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF, BOSTON SPA

We started and ended the day with a great buzz! The tour is keeping us busy bees active! This was one of the all round greatest days – unfortunately the day went too quick!

Here we are getting ready for the assembly and the pop up event outside.

The primary and secondary students at St John’s school, along with staff, were very engaged when we talked about using secret signing behind teachers’ backs in school, or talking about others in public places, making hearing friends who learn to sign with us. There was time for the students to discuss their own memories and thoughts and feelings – so many put their hands up to share what they thought. The memories were very positive even when there were negative causes, which prove they are able to deal with the situation and learn from it.

Here are some examples:

One boy want to imagine what hearing world is like. This student says he now knows what is it like and managed to fit in with few of hearing people but does not feel included enough.

Another girl always felt left out in everything and still experiences the same now, especially around hearing people acknowledging her deafness and walks away to talk with others and leave her alone to not know anything.

These two have felt the same as many others as I told them myself when I went through the same struggle,

‘… they forgotten about me and chatting away, they left me in unknown darkness…’ excerpt from the poem Unknown Darkness.

At St John’s school they school gave a great hospitality making sure we were fed well with water and yummy biscuits, on a very hot day. We had loads of great bunch of groups who were very interested in poetry, quite a few of them expressed their life’s struggles and experiences, ups and downs, highs and lows.

LEEDS ROUNDHAY TESCO SUPERSTORE

We had a great afternoon in Leeds Roundhay Tesco Superstore with many visitors including a group of children from Kerr Mackie primary school.

They loved all of the activities! They wrote balloon tags to be sent up into the air …

They created lots of poetry on the giant magnetic poetry board …

They explored games, apps and videos on the Life & Deaf iPads in the camper van …

Blog entry by Mayuri Hirani, Life & Deaf poet on tour

PERCY HEDLEY COLLEGE, NEWCASTLE

Wow, we finally arrive in Newcastle!

Today we visit Percy Hedley foundation college. This college is for deaf people who have learning difficulties. This was a lovely school because everyone was friendly and interacting with each other really well.

During the morning, we did activities such as the chalk board and the magnetic board as well as the balloon tag and the iPads in Heidi the camper van. Today was brilliant to see how the students feel about deafness, most of them were positive and there was some negative for example on the chalk board they drew some happy faces and some angry faces. It was lovely to meet them and it was nice for them to share their experiences with us.

One of the girls we met joined the Sign Good Morning campaign by wishing us Good Morning using her Communication board.

In the afternoon we were off to Newcastle Tesco Superstore. Today went brilliantly. This tour has boost up my confidence and now I willing to talk to anyone that I don’t know and tell them about our project. Today was successful as we spoke to over 200 people and their attitude was really nice toward us and they were willing to learn. 

There was an article about us in the local newspaper!

Blog entry by Kayleigh Goacher, Life & Deaf poet on tour

SOLAR BEAR DEAF YOUTH THEATRE with a guest visit by Julia Donaldson!

Getting all prepared for the performance at the Solar Bear Deaf Youth Theatre, who had produced an emotional visual film called ‘Stargazer’ which some of you seem at the Deaffest recently in May, Wolverhampton.

Lots of the young people got very involved in the discussion about their life’s memories of deafness during the upbringing.

We shared our experiences. One experience that lots of people shared was about people coming to us with an enthusiastic face on that they would like to learn sign language. Getting our hopes up right through the roof to the space…only to realise with our faces dropped dead and stiffed.. Because… As usual they were only after learning the swear words… Not so surprising ei! Everyone has come across this phase in their life, not just for sign languages but also in the spoken languages too. A strange part of human cycle we all have when looking back. We loved our morning with so many young people who share our love of performance.

MARYHILL TESCO EXTRA

In the afternoon at the Tesco in Maryhill, where the group from the morning said ‘good luck for dealing with the rough area’ when in Maryhill. Somehow, we managed to turn the expectation around coming across with so many lovely people where we were able to approach to anyone. It was nice feeling that we were able to turn it around.

Pauline discovered a new technique of persuading people to learn to Sign Good Morning – she joined them on the escalators as they rode in and out of the store!

 Blog entry by Mayuri Hirani, Life & Deaf poet on tour

GLASGOW

Wow what a wildest enormous peaks of different shades of greeny mountain-shaped land with trees on our way to Glasgow, amazing view that keeps your eyes wide open throughout. Oh my life, luckily I didn’t dribble. I’m telling you it was wow, amazing, wow, wow, and wow times infinity.

As we arrived to Glasgow we didn’t realise there were far too many one-way routes, so ended up cruising around in circles just to find…car parking spaces(!) how unbelievable yet it was a fun puzzle to solve at the same time. Poor Heidi got stuck, but we managed to get her out alive and kicking in one piece – she is still looking beautiful!

We all slept well and did our things, some went out shopping which I did myself too early morning on a SUNDAY?! Surprising to see all shops has the same opening hours as other days. Some went out for a walkabout, museums making the most of being outside with a perfect weather. Going on the sightseeing bus tour was amazing, apart from the fact the driver drove too fast especially on the turns, troubling me to take a decent angled-photos of the sights.

Got a bit carried away taking photos, when I say ‘a bit’, I actually meant (shhhh) “A LOT” of photos were taken, hundreds. Whoops… But in the end it was a great day to switch off our mind however I couldn’t resist myself towards the end of the bus tour, to ask both staff to allow us film them signing Good Morning on our day off!

The sights were great lasting 2hours of cold wind breezing away on us. We had stayed on the top floor of our apartment thinking ‘WOW what an view’. Felt good to have cooked my dinner, tomato soup with mini baguettes, oh it was yum yum in my tum tum!

Blog entry by Mayuri Hirani, Life & Deaf poet on tour

DEAF VISION, CARLISLE

Hello! Sorry for not updating you sooner but I have so much to tell you so get your coffee and popcorn ready!

We spent a fabulous morning with deaf children and their families from Deaf Vision in the stunning grounds of the University of Cumbria, Carlisle. As soon as we arrived we heard from the organiser of Deaf Vision telling us the good news …

Good news was an announcement about us was told on the Radio ’3 TIMES this morning!’ This put our mood up high to the moon, mentally jumping up and down, we quickly set up the interactive iPads in the camper van, Heidi, the magnetic board, and the gazebo to film the public sign ‘Good Morning’ while we were being roasted by the sun. 

A family turned up very early just at the same time as we arrived and the two little boys were so sweet questioning everything we do and asking many Whys.

The boys went straight onto the iPads listening and watching the signed song which is translated from a pop song, Troublemaker by….Olly Murs on repeat constantly whilst playing games on other iPad!

A young couple came by where the girl is deaf with her partner who is hearing, she is named Kayleigh who did a poem ‘remember batteries’ on the magnetic board. She then got drawn into Heidi the camper van and was glued to the iPad watching the short film of ‘That’s not all of me’. She loves it so much that I later found out she has seen it at home for about …..5 TIMES!!! …. Wooow and yet she carried on watching it again many times in Heidi’s world of poems. Kayleigh’s dad was there too – he was really interested in finding out more about Life & Deaf.

We packed up and made way to ye olde Scotland in Glasgow for the weekend. We are so excited yet dreading trying to understand the Scottish accent! Come back to read more about our time in Scotland …

Blog entry by Mayuri Hirani, Life & Deaf poet on tour

DEAF ACTIVE, LIVERPOOL

This morning we visit a place called Deaf Active which is a youth service for deaf children, children with deaf parents and hearing children with deaf brothers or sisters. We met lots of young deaf people age 17 onward who are employed at Deaf Active to run sports and signing activities.

We shared poetry performances, sign songs and our film and webcast with them. During the presentation people gave a good examples of positive and negative experience when they are trying to interact with  hearing people. When we all went outside to do some workshop everyone including the staff was involved doing the magnetic and chalk board, balloon tag and lots of other things.

We were being filmed by the film crew as part of the webcast – they specifically came to Mold and Liverpool with us to capture the essence of our tour – look out for the webcast on this website in August! 

We waved the web team farewell when we left Deaf Active but not for long as we are seeing them again on the last day of the tour, 24th July. Remember that date and pencil it in your diary – come along to General Gordon Square in Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich to welcome us home at the end of our tour!

ALUN SCHOOL, MOLD

Today we visited Alun school in Mold and we did a assembly and it was a mixture of students, school staff and parents. Before we did our presentation there was two boys who did the presentation first about the individual identities of deaf young people. 

We did the presentation including showing the Sign Good Morning clips, the film of ‘That’s not all of me’ and also the webcast and the sign songs.

This was successful because during the assembly we heard some of the audience’s experiences about deafness which was interesting to listen to.

We spent an amazing morning outside by the camper van with different groups of students and school staff taking part in all of the activities, expressing themselves.

We also have met the girl who have written our UK tour name “include me in the world”, Victoria.

This  was brilliant for us to actually meet her in person, she was a lovely girl. 

MOLD TESCO EXTRA

Later on that afternoon we visit one of the Tesco extra in Mold trying to spread the word about Life & Deaf and also trying to raise awareness on deafness.

Today was brilliant because some of the staff and children came along from Alun school. We taught others to sign good morning and videoed some which you may can see on the website. We also been giving out our magnet, wristband and sign book.

Overall today went brilliant because all the children in Alun School was interested and it was interacting with other children doing the activity. Some of them wrote a really powerful poem or sentences. At Tesco we mange to talk to about 100 or more people and teaching them good morning which is more than we expect!

Blog entry by Kayleigh Goacher, Life & Deaf poet on tour

DEAF CULTURAL CENTRE, BIRMINGHAM

What an interesting day it was today, where we were based in Birmingham at the Deaf Cultural Centre full of pupils and staff from different schools along with deaf members of the public who meet in this fabulous space. There were lots of people there, keeping me busy, buzzing around the ground between stalls of activities such as creating magnetic poetry or writing thoughts onto balloon tags, talking with lots of people about their feelings. Also, encouraging the adults to get involved to make them feel included as much as we do with the pupils.

Oh and before I forget, my old school friend, a young looking lad Zeon Campbell, who is now working in Birmingham with the school children has performed his poem ‘Deaf is the BEST’ during the assembly in the morning which has been originally revealed at the launch in 2006 as one of the starting young poet. **applause**

Few of the things that has got my eyes drawn to were:

A particular road sign saying ‘Deaf people’!

Full of positive feelings expressed from the Magnetic Poem board whole morning, not a single negative expression. Wow! I have discussed this with a group of school teachers as a feedback how we normally observed mixture of negative and positive emotions.

ASTON LANE TESCO EXTRA, BIRMINGHAM

In the afternoon we moved on to Aston Lane Tesco Extra to tell as many people as possible about our ‘Include me in the world’ message. Most of the people we met hadn’t met a deaf person before – now they have!

HEATHLANDS SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF, ST ALBAN’S

On day 2 of our tour we visit Heathlands school in Hatfield. At the beginning of the day we did an assembly where we performed our poem and showed other people our film.

We were delighted that three children from Heathlands also stood up and shared their poem with us – it was amazing to see the poetry they have written.

After that we shared our pop up exhibition with the giant magnet board, big TV screen at the back of Heidi and we had the iPads inside with fun and useful games, videos, websites etc.

When we did the workshop, it was very successful because every child was engaged and was very involved even the staff got involved. 

It was lovely to meet those children and hear their thought on being deaf and their feedback on our film, hopefully we get to meet them again!

HATFIELD TESCO EXTRA

Later on that day we visit Tesco where we draw people to our van and explain what we do and what our aims are.

We also gave out wrist band and magnet if they sign good morning. This was very interesting because we heard quite a fascinating story from the people.

One man told us about growing up with profoundly deaf parents. He is hearing but learnt to sign because he spent most of his childhood in a Deaf Club in Cardiff. He loved learning about Life & Deaf!

One mother had a child who have lost her hearing from illness recently and she wasn’t keen to wear hearing aid as she was born hearing and doesn’t know other people with hearing aids. We encourage her that it okay to wear hearing aids. Her mum is doing a great job, she trying to teach her daughter to sign as well as herself. We were discussing where they can go to learn and sharing our experience.

SGM Tesco Hatfield Mum and Daughter

OLD ROYAL NAVAL COLLEGE, GREENWICH

The first day of our UK tour started with coverage of the Sign Good Morning campaign on CBS Outdoor escalator screens across London in Charing Cross, London Bridge, Waterloo, Euston, Victoria and Paddington London Underground stations. This will be in stations all week!

There was a fantastic article about the Sign Good Morning campaign in today’s Metro - http://tinyurl.com/m5f6rmf

Today we set up a festival in Greenwich by the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

The aim of our tour is to raise awareness of deafness by raising deaf people voice by showing big audiences our film that won a international award and lots of other activities, performances and things to give away.

Down in the Greenwich there were photo booth where you can get your photo taken signing good morning (#SignGoodMorning) or have your funny faces picture taken to remember the day.

There were another activities where you write your feeling on the label then attach it to the balloon to be flown away hoping that another area and different people would read it.

We also have magnet word or chalk writing on how you feeling being deaf and taking picture to be put on the website so that people can see your point of view and your experience of being deaf.

Tina, Deaf Instructor, was also there teaching other people basic sign language to the young people. There was also group of people performing showing other people how they feel through poetry.

Overall i think the day went brilliant and amazing. I notice some the hearing people was trying to sign and everyone said that today was inspiring and they enjoy the day even though it was hot!

Blog entries by Kayleigh Goacher and Mayuri Hirani, Life & Deaf poets on tour