Twenty-four deaf and hard of hearing students hit the stage of the Michael J. Fox Theatre in Burnaby last week to test their oratorical skills at the Optimist Communication Contest.
Patterned after the Optimist Oratorical Contest, the annual competition gives deaf and hard of hearing youth from around B.C. a chance to get together and compete in speech and sign-language presentations.
A pair of B.C. Provincial School for the Deaf (BCSD) students – Nina Ward and Ethan Bolton – took first and second place respectively in the American Sign Language category, expressing their thoughts on this year’s theme – “how my best brings out the best in others.”
This year’s competition was a highlight in Deaf Connections Week, a new initiative by the Provincial Outreach Program: Deaf and Hard of Hearing (POPDHH) aimed at getting some of the province’s more than 1,200 deaf and hard of hearing kids together.
“We provide opportunities for them to meet like peers and to be immersed in that environment, to have a concept that ‘I’m not alone in this world; there are others just like me,’” POPDHH education consultant Lynley Lewis told the NOW. “You could be the only child who’s deaf and hard of hearing in a school, and what does that say for your self-concept, when you see no one else like you?”
Deaf Connections Week brought together about 150 students from around B.C. for a tour of the provincial deaf school, housed at Burnaby South Secondary and South Slope Elementary.
And after the Optimist competition, a group of students also signed up to spend the night at the Vancouver Aquarium and sleep next to the belugas.
