If you follow The Neumark Foundation and the work we support, you will no doubt have seen the wonderful charity Chloe’s and Sophie’s Special Ears Fund (CSSEF) that we support with their incredible work, currently, in Flintshire and Wrexham, with schools and families to brighten the lives of Deaf children, enabling an inclusive, happy and effective environment for children and young people to achieve their potential in learning and within their own communities.

CSSEF are really keen to build a Deaf community that sits comfortably and happily within the wider community, encouraging a side by side, cross-community understanding amongst peers, families and professionals about deafness in children and young people. The key to being able to work together, as with everything is communication, but for Deaf children, and those who sit outside the community this is generally the greatest barrier, and with a fear of difference, this barrier is not overcome as much as it should be, often leading to isolation. CSSEF are very keen to raise awareness of the importance of overcoming this barrier, and so a key part of their offer as a charity it to enable Deaf children, families, education providers, and others, to learn a language that knocks this barrier down through facilitating BSL or British Sign Language training. One of the ways that they encourage this is through fantastic workshops in schools with the inspirational Fletch@. Jayne Fletcher, known as Fletch has been Deaf from birth after being born three-months premature, and has faced challenges through her life as a result. She is regarded as one of the UK’s leading SignSong performers, she is a solo artist, but has also worked alongside artists like Ronan Keating and Ed Sheerhan. She was presented the Prince’s Trust award for regional ‘Young Achiever of the Year 2012’by Prince Charles. She continues to work successfully in the music industry, but also delivers online BSL training, and SignSong workshops to schools, colleges and universities across the country.

I was delighted to be invited to go along to one of the workshops to see for myself. The workshop took place at Ysgol Maesglas, Holywell. From start to finish, it was absolutely incredible to watch all three different age group workshops, and how every child, and teacher was engaged and joining in. Creating a fun, inspiring environment and using a platform like music brings people of all ages together, raising awareness, breaking through barriers and reducing fear of difference. Fletch@ is very open encouraging the children to ask her personal questions about music and her own deafness.

I would like to say well done to all the children and staff at Ysgol Maesglas, who came along and did an amazing job of learning to sign the whole song in such a short space of time, a huge thank you to the incredible, inspirational Fletch@ and just an awe-inspired congratulations to CSSEF for delivering a fabulous programme of initiatives, which truly are brightening the lives of Deaf children.

The Neumark Foundation is incredibly proud to support this charity.