Hello, I’m Tina from Germany.
Sign language, Deaf culture mmmmm. Growing up I didn’t really think about it much. My family are Deaf, we signed. At school we signed and used some spoken language. It was all normal for me. Did I have a moment of realisation over who I was? No not really. It carried on like that.
Then there was a Deaf Youth camp, there were lots of Deaf teenagers there. They had Deaf leaders everywhere which I thought was interesting. There was lots of signing, so I had full access to everything going on there, I became more confident. Plus, we had presentations about Deaf Culture, I watched them, ahh… right right right…. Yes, Deaf culture, Deaf way, I became more and more confident. I learnt more about Deaf Culture, about sign language.
I felt more confident. I now understood MY Deaf culture, MY language and MY Deaf identity.
After that, I was stronger, it’s something I know, the knowledge is always there in my head. It’s had a huge influence over my life.
