More by accident than design鈥攁nd RealAudio aside鈥攖he Internet is
a godsend for people with impaired hearing. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a great equaliser,鈥� says
Kirsty Warwick, media communications officer at Britain鈥檚 Royal National
Institute for Deaf People. The Web has opened many doors. Deaf people can now
communicate as easily as any hearing person through e-mail and newsgroup
bulletin boards.
Next week, the liberating power of the Net will be centre stage as
Britain鈥檚 8.7 million hearing-impaired people celebrate Deaf Awareness Week. The
RNID will be relaunching its website on www.rnid.org.uk. New features include
updated facilities for e-commerce, reviews of equipment, plus a jobs site. Also
relaunched is the British Deaf Association鈥檚 site at www.bda.org.uk.
For deaf travellers, sites don鈥檛 come much more useful than
http://deafworldweb.org. It has entries for every country, listing the preferred sign
languages in various territories and the facilities available.
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News junkies, meanwhile, should try www.deaftoday.com or
www.silentnews.org. Silentnews is looking super-slick since its relaunch
in September and claims to be 鈥渢he world鈥檚 most popular website of deaf and hard-of-hearing
辫别辞辫濒别鈥�.
For some valuable links, try the BBC鈥檚 minisite for the deaf at
www.bbc.co.uk/see_hear. For deaf children, there鈥檚 a fun resource site at
www.deafchild.org.
Gallaudet University in Washington DC is the world鈥檚 only university
exclusively for people with impaired hearing (www.gallaudet.edu). A fascinating
minisite entitled 鈥淗istory through deaf eyes鈥� highlights hardships of deaf
people during some of our bleakest history, such as the Second World War and the
Holocaust. Other more erudite sites include www.wfdnews.org set up by the World
Federation of the Deaf.
