Sign Language Week holds immense significance for the BDA, particularly this year as we launch our #TakingBSLForward civil rights movement. The week serves as a crucial opportunity to garner support for our mission and act as a platform to launch our 'Early Years’ position statement.

As the 'National Representative Organisation of British Sign Language (BSL) and Irish Sign Language (ISL) in the UK,' our responsibility is to 'Promote, Preserve and Protect' BSL and ISL. Our national sign languages have faced marginalisation for over a century at the hands of the hearing majority—teachers, doctors, politicians—who relentlessly promoted oralism, denying Deaf children access to sign language and resulting in damaging language deprivation.

BSL stands as the fourth most widely used indigenous language in the UK, with an estimated 151,000 individuals utilising the language.