An innovative European Union funded project which seeks to inspire deaf people to gain the skills
required to become the agents of their own social inclusion was launched today in Enniskillen at the
South West College Technology and Skills Centre. The Deaf Communications Infrastructure
Development (DCID) project has received £962,000 from the INTERREG IVA Programme and will
operate across Northern Ireland and the Border Counties of Ireland.
Speaking at the launch Paul Parsons, Director of Communications at Signature, one of the partners
in the project said:-
“The project will help provide deaf sign language users with the confidence and skills to enable them to pursue careers as teachers of their own language. In turn, they can inspire a new generation of
hearing people who wish to learn to communicate with their deaf peers, and to consider careers as
communication professionals to assist them in accessing the basic public services particularly in the
field of health, education and employment.”
The DCID project brings together a partnership of six organisations from Northern Ireland and the
Republic of Ireland. Each organisation specialises in adult education or vocational skills development.
The purpose of coming together is to build an infrastructure that addresses the critical current
shortage of communication professionals working with deaf people to access public sector services.
Further information on the project can be found at the project’s website on www.teachsign.eu
Welcoming the EU funded project Howard Keery, Director of the Joint Technical Secretariat in the
SEUPB, said:-
“This is a highly significant project that will make a real and positive impact on the lives of deaf
people, on a cross-border basis. Taking a truly collaborative based approach it will help fill a critical gap in access to mainstream public sector services within the deaf community. One of the main
objectives of the INTERREG IVA Programme is to support projects like this which are pro-actively
encouraging the joined-up delivery of public service provision, on both sides of the border.”
Eileen Kelly MBE, Director of EGSA commented that:-
“There is tremendous potential in this project to engage deaf people in further education, to enhance
their career prospects and, at the same time, to increase the number of communication
professionals. EGSA is proud to be involved and I look forward to continuing to work in partnership
to enable the project to reach its full potential.”
