Deaf Friendly Ltd
Nominated for Business award
Deaf Friendly Ltd was started by Sarah Lawrence over 20 ago and offers a variety of training and BSL translation services to help create more inclusive workplaces and communities across Wales.
Sarah from Cardiff is a long established campaigner for improvement in BSL education and set up her company to help other businesses deal appropriately with deaf clients and workers. She began by developing BSL training programmes, including BSL GCSE. This is helping the development of training programmes for teachers to deliver BSL in schools which has the potential to enhance the lives of the 12 million people across then UK who have been diagnosed with hearing issues. In addition to Deaf consultancy services, Sarah was one of the first Deaf people to offer Deaf Awareness courses in addition to the BSL courses that she has run since the business started. She has also started to see the business grow to meet the new demand for BSL translation services for television and other media channels and is helping to provide full-time work opportunities for Deaf adults who may not have had opportunities before.
Her ambition is to see BSL become a widely accessible language that can help combat isolation and loneliness that many deaf people experience.