Deaffest

Louis Francis, owner of Francis Stone Design will generously make a trophy award which will be presented to the winner of Young Deaffest next month!

About Louis:

Freelance Stone Carver – main expertise is letter cutting however my skills extend to ornamental stone carving, replication and historical carving, stone restoration, gilding with gold leaf and polishing. My work portfolio varies from house numbers to monumental headstones to gilding wrought iron gates. Able to offer quotes, private commissions and stone consultation.

You can find him on Facebook ‘Francis Stone Design’ and you can contact him at louisfranciscarving@gmail.com.

 

Ben Steiner Bursary Workshop

Last weekend was a very busy and a successful one for Zebra Access/ Deaffest!  The Ben Steiner Bursary workshop which took place at Wolverhampton Science Park saw eight enthusiastic participants successfully accepted to enter the scheme.

 

Award-winning Director John Maidens led the workshop and did a fantastic job as always in educating the participants in the areas of script writing, production, marketing and pitching.

The Ben Steiner Bursary was first launched in 2009, set up in memory of Ben Steiner who died in 2000.  The Bursary is a bi-annual event for talented emerging deaf and hard of hearing filmmakers over the age of 18.

 

While it was a weekend of learning the ropes, the two-day course was also an opportunity to meet new faces and form friendships.  At the end of the workshop, the participants departed for home having learnt a thing or two (or rather, several!)

 

Armed with their new knowledge, the participating filmmakers will soon be pitching their film concept to a judge panel of high profile media experts.

 

All the best to them!

In his third week in sunny Sri Lanka, Alex is really settling in now!

“Monday saw the arrival of Rajitha and her husband, Chandranath – they are instructors of Buddhism. They are keen to teach deaf people around the world about pure Buddhism. Along with other deaf volunteers and an interpreter, we all had a big discussion about how this can be presented in various sign languages across the world for Rajitha’s website to be broadcasted online. In the evening, I visited the deaf family I stayed with last year, it was lovely to see them all again and had a huge catch up. The youngest one has shot up, started walking and already learnt simple Sri Lankan sign language.

On Wednesday, I signed the British Sign Language version of the pure Buddhism teachings for their website – another word for this is Nirvana Dhamma – http://www.nirvanadhamma.com/en.

On Friday morning, Kasun, other members of the deaf organisation and I visited a mainstream school in Weligama to discuss the donated hearing aids project. There is young deaf boy at the school who is in desperate need of one, we made plans to meet him next week and arrange a hearing aid to be fitted on him. I then visited Rohana Specialist School again to talk arrangements of my teaching after the Sinhala and Tamil New Year and saw the kids off for their holidays.

At the weekend, I hit the waves and soaked up the rays at the beach resorts of Unawatuna and Mirissa. Saturday evening was a blast – there was a huge concert by the beach next to the bus stand in Matara town. The band on the stage were playing loud heavy metal music and shaking their hair everywhere – there was a thunderstorm at the same time so it was raining the whole time. It was hilarious dancing in the rain with Kasun and everyone (and an umbrella!).”