To celebrate this year’s Deaf Awareness Week, the SVP Deaf Centre is re-launching on Friday 5th May. The Deaf Centre Makes Some Noise! event will focus on networking and public discourse. Schools can visit between 10am and 2pm and adults can get involved from 4-9pm.
Located in the Georgian terrace overlooking stunning Newcastle Summerhill Square, the SVP Deaf Centre has a meeting room, bar, kitchen, dining area along with a social club room and private garden.
The project’s vision is integration and education. By supporting the Deaf community and those local to the area, the Centre aims to bring communities together. Running since 1932, the project Centre focuses on empowering local Deaf, hard of hearing and non-deaf people. It offers welfare and health advice in BSL (British Sign Language), brings together academic and public research groups, and engages its members in small career fairs. It also gives space to Trinity College that provides Secure English Language Tests (SELT) and British Nationality Testing. Furthermore, it also became a hub for children holiday camps, and the monthly celebration of mass in BSL.
The Centre runs a donation-based, Pay As You Feel Café serving the Deaf and hearing community and is open every Wednesday between 11am and 1pm. With the newly appointed ‘local celebrity’ chef – they hope to increase the opening hours, expand the clientele and extend their range of activities, such as a cookery school and school of catering.
The goal is to see Deaf and hearing community coming in encouraging integration and empowering through education. They believe that through the beauty of art, movement and theatre we may offer a unique path to recognise the needs of another person.
Volunteers are welcome to the centre to help them understand better the deaf community, with further plans to open School of BSL to enable learning new communication skills and language.