About the British Deaf Association

Founded in 1890, the British Deaf Association (BDA) is a national Deaf-led organisation that works directly with Deaf people that use British Sign Language (BSL). Our work concentrates on campaigning for equal rights on a national level and working at a local level empowering Deaf people to achieve access to their local public services. This is carried out through projects delivering individual and community advocacy. We also work to ensure BSL is included by public bodies by delivering a public commitment through signing the BSL Charter.

Our Board of Trustees are all Deaf (we use the capitalised ‘D’ to denote the fact that we have a separate language and culture and 80% of our staff are Deaf themselves).

Many Deaf people who use BSL lack access to education, health services, employment and other public services. Our work is designed to empower Deaf people and to improve access to general information and public services. We seek to achieve this by working with Deaf people at the local level through setting up forums to lobby public bodies and supporting Deaf people individually.

This is in line with the overall BDA objectives, which are: Deaf Equality, Access and Freedom of choice.