BDA Policy & Campaigns
Welcome to the BDA Policy & Campaigns information pages. Here you can learn all about the BDA’s aims and long term goals to positively affect Government Policy and bring about equality to the lives of Deaf BSL users through campaigning, discussion and improving awareness.
Our Policy & Campaigns team work alongside other Deaf organisations that support our aims and objectives to create an even stronger ‘Deaf’ voice in the UK. By doing this we hope to encourage our government to make the necessary changes to policy, resulting in true equality for our linguistic minority.
Engagement with local Deaf Communities is crucial to the success of BDA campaigns, whilst creating opportunities for Deaf people to develop and engage with each other and the wider community.
The BDA's priority campaigning areas are Deaf Culture, Deaf Identity and British Sign Language. Our current campaigning activity is focused on two overarching aims:
- Achieving legal status for British Sign Language as an Indigenous Minority Language in the UK. This will lead to an equality of opportunity for our Deaf Community through the protection and promotion of our language.
- The right of our Deaf children to be educated in a bi-lingual and bi-cultural environment. This will put academic achievement at the forefront of Deaf children’s education, without losing our rich and vibrant Deaf cultural heritage.
We have had many successes but discrimination still exists in many forms that pose a challenge to the daily lives of Deaf people all around the UK. For more than 120 years the BDA have campaigned for change and equality and we will continue to do this until language discrimination towards BSL users comes to an end.
The Policy & Campaigns team works closely with the new Community Development team to ensure that we have feedback, participation and the support of Deaf people on a local level to enable the growth, impact and strength of our campaigns.
We believe that community engagement, clear objectives and positive relations with other organisations are the keys to success for our campaigns.