Presenting the Past: My Firsts
Scottish Deaf Heritage Project

Scottish Council on Deafness (SCoD) was awarded a grant of £47,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund to preserve Scottish deaf people’s heritage by capturing memories on film, future generations of d/Deaf and hearing people will be able to benefit.

We will use this funding to:

1. Record the unique heritage for future generations – deaf and hearing – especially those with deaf parents or grandparents;
2. Capture Deaf people’s memories on camera in their native BSL and reproduce it on DVD, providing a valuable and much needed resource for younger Deaf people to learn about their own culture and history;
3. Provide teaching materials for Deaf Studies courses in schools and colleges so students can learn from these films directly about Deaf Culture, Heritage and Language
4. Preserve older deaf people’s signs on film.  As the language changes and develops these old signs are in danger of being lost forever.

With this funding SCoD will produce a DVD accessible to all through BSL, captions and voiceover so that younger and future generations can learn about their own heritage.  Captured forever will be Deaf people’s memories of their firsts: at school, on apprenticeships and at showing how people coped in an age without the benefits of modern deaf-friendly technology such as mobile phones, visual alarms and email – very much taken for granted these days. For the first time, Deaf children in Scotland will be able to learn about their own heritage and cultural history directly in their own language.

In January and February 2010, Lilian Lawson, SCoD Director has planned a series of visits to deaf clubs in different parts of Scotland to talk to local deaf people about this project and invite them to sign up for filming which will take place in Spring and Summer 2010. There will be a training day on Saturday 6th March 2010 for deaf people to learn how to interview other deaf people in front of camera. This training day is organised by the Scottish Oral History Centre.

For more details about this project, please contact Lilian Lawson, SCoD Director at this address: lilian@scod.org.uk

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