Lucy Buxton Interview

Sadie Gilbert chats to Lucy Buxton

Transcript

00:00So here on the island, if we say we've got a population of about 85,000 people,

00:05one in six of that population, so 12 to 15,000 people, will have some degree of hearing loss.

00:12The number of sign language users who use sign language as their first language is decreasing

00:18here on the island. We probably have maybe 10 people out of that 85,000 who would use sign

00:25language as their main language. But we look to support now anybody with any degree of hearing

00:31loss or anybody with a hearing related issue, whether that's direct support or whether we can

00:36refer them to another agency. We offer a range of services, so we have sign language classes for

00:42people who want to learn sign language and we have a sign language users club that meets once a week.

00:48They also have an activity once a month where they go out about and do something. It could be

00:54like a calligraphy workshop that's coming up fairly soon in Castletown or it could just be

00:59going out for a few drinks in Douglas, bowling up in Ramsey, a range of different things. We have

01:04the Hear2Hear group who are for people like me because I have hearing loss, I wear two hearing

01:10aids, so it's a group for people like me. Again, we meet monthly and we go out and have a different

01:15activity. We have done various different things recently. We've been to Milltown for food,

01:21we've been for a walk, we've been to Snaefell, we've done various different things. Hopefully

01:26we've got an art activity coming up soon and a quiz and a buffet at Christmas. We offer lip

01:32reading classes at three different venues around the island. So one of the other things I do is I

01:36teach lip reading to adults with hearing loss to enable them to become more confident in following

01:42conversations. And that becomes more of a support group as much as a class, I suppose, because the

01:49people in there really do support each other and they look after each other because we all have some

01:55degree of hearing loss in there. Sign language has developed, it is now a recognised language,

02:00it's not actually recognised as a language here on the Isle of Man. So with International Day of

02:08Sign Languages coming up on Monday, it's a good opportunity to say actually encouraging that

02:15inclusivity of including people who have sign language as a language is a really good thing to

02:20be aiming for. There are some disabilities where it's very obvious that you have a disability.

02:26If you're in a wheelchair, if you walk with a stick, if you have sight loss and you use a cane,

02:31all those make your disability more visible. For people with hearing loss, you might have hearing

02:38aids or another form of hearing instrument, a cochlear implant, or you might not. Those things

02:42don't work for all people. Some people find them uncomfortable, wet to wear, they don't like them.

02:48So it is a very hidden disability. What I would like to say is we do run sign language classes

02:54throughout the year. We are currently developing our timetable of classes for next year. So if

02:59anybody is interested in learning sign language, we do a very basic introduction to sign language

03:05course, which is 15 hours, three hours at a time over five consecutive weekends. And then we also

03:13have a level one class, which again is suitable for complete beginners. We have a fabulous deaf

03:18teacher who comes and works either online or face to face here on the island.