Deaf Connections is the leading voluntary organisation delivering specialist services to adult deaf people across Scotland.

We are committed to enabling deaf people to participate fully in the community to make equality and fairness a normal feature of their everyday lives. We want to empower deaf people to make decisions about things which affect them most. Exclusion from a wide range of mainstream services and opportunities continues to drive the development of our new services.

We work collaboratively with agencies to promote the interests of people in the Deaf community focusing on quality of life, independence and social inclusion. We listen to deaf people, respect their views and are committed to eliminating the communication barriers they face.

We believe that deaf people have the right to belong to a distinctive cultural community expressed by a positive feeling of shared values and experience. Deaf Connections is positive about employing deaf staff wherever possible. We believe that people in the Deaf community welcome a service delivered by dedicated staff who have first hand experience of what it means to be deaf and the importance of developing professional relationships in a hearing world.

Statement: Within the Deaf community sectarianism remains a deeply divisive issue and has been either overlooked or ignored by mainstream services and society. This is due in part to the linguistic barriers that exist between hearing people and for those who

Use British Sign Language, B.S.L. Many Deaf people experience sectarian related prejudice but often do not know where to turn for support. The main aims of this project is to look at how sectarianism affects Deaf people, how to challenge

It and sometimes to try and describe what it actually is, as many Deaf people are unaware of the definition of sectarianism and to whom they could report these issues to. Through workshops, awareness raising and education this project seeks to bring together two divided groups with the intention of fostering better relations between Catholic and Protestant Deaf people from the Glasgow area.

Definition of Sectarianism: Within the context of the experience of Deaf Glasgow residents, educational experience, choice of sign language, social interactions all have a bearing on which side of the divide Deaf people chose to remain. Although, there is limited

understanding of the definition of Sectarianism amongst Deaf people there is certainly antagonism and bad feelings between the two groups. Sectarian prejudice can be based upon which types of signs are used by Deaf people which can be offensive to one group but not to the other. Other factors, such as whether or not somebody attended a Protestant or Catholic school or which Deaf Social club or group somebody wishes to associate with can have an impact on this issue.

Name: George McGowan

Address: 100 Norfolk Street, Glasgow, G5 9EJ

Website: www.deafconnections.co.uk

Telephone: 18002 0141 420 2806 (Typetalk relay service)

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