On Tuesday 10th October members of the DDYC, DEX staff Claire and Zara and Ian from the DEX board set off to Edinburgh for our annual residential trip, kindly funded by the National Lottery. Here are some daily updates from our Chief Executive Officer Claire Baldwin:
Day 1
We had fantastic train journey up to Edinburgh yesterday morning. We played lots of games and had a good laugh. We talked about how DEX can continue to include deaf young people in our work.
The members did a great job of navigating us to the hostel when we arrived. We then had a fantastic night with Deaf Tour Leader John Hay, who is an expert in deaf history. He took us round lots of local sights, including the the birth place of Alexander Graham Bell. We saw Edinburgh Castle at sunset, which was fantastic. He also got us into the Halloween mood by telling us about spooky activity at a local graveyard! We finished the night with some lovely Indian food and then games back at the hostel.
Day 2
We had a fantastic sunny second day in Scotland!
In the morning we spent more time with Deaf Tour Leader John Hay who took us to the grave of a deaf artist and told us more about the general history of Edinburgh. We enjoyed chatting to a Scottish interpreter and comparing the differences between Scottish and English signs for numbers, months and weeks- they are really quite different!
We saw lots of sights relevant to the Harry Potter stories, which everyone really enjoyed. At 1pm we saw the guns being set off at Edinburgh Castle and admired the fantastic views there.
In the afternoon we went to the World of Illusions which we all found really funny and had a great laugh! We then walked round the gift shops and saw lots of traditional Scottish tartan and tweed.
In the evening we went for some lovely Italian food and played card games.
Day 3
Yesterday morning we went to see the site of the old deaf school and learned about how it had been sadly demolished.
We then went to visit the Scottish Parliament building. It was really fascinating to learn all about it and great to see how it was built with accessibility in mind. They showed us how the interpreters are projected on to a big screen. We also met the BSL Officer, who was a deaf man and really interesting.
After a super busy few days we got on the train to come home for a well earned rest!
Thanks so much to everyone for such a fantastic few days and thanks again to the National Lottery Community Fund for allowing it to happen!
