Aviva Community Fund has provided £787 of match funding
sonus survival
Eastleigh, England, United Kingdom
Aim
Deaf people required support more than ever during the pandemic, so we need funds to support salary costs as no staff were furloughed.
Deaf people have really struggled during the covid19 pandemic, through lack of accessible information. At sonus we decided to continue to provide a front line service, even though we knew our income would reduce as many of our income generating activities needed to stop due to government restrictions on social distancing. Where we would normally provide a funded face to face interpreting service, we improvised and offered where possible a free interpreting service using facetime or skype. We also opened up an accessible help line mostly using facetime or text messaging to deaf people in the community to prevent them feeling lonely, isolated or afraid and to help them to deal with telephone calls or translating any letters that they had received. Our workers have throughout the pandemic gone out to shop for our most vulnerable clients . But even more importantly we have continue to spread the message to 'stay at home' to deaf people for whom the generic messages have been scant or absent. We have been translating and promoting the messages in an accessible format. The decision to continue to support the community rather than furlough workers was made with the interests of the deaf community in mind, and proactively work to reduce isolation, maintain good health and prevent crisis. Imagine watching the covid19 briefings and public announcements without sound - they really don't make any sense! One deaf person had seen the microscopic image of Covid19 and assumed that small red balls would fly through the air and make you ill.
This project successfully funded on 22nd July 2020