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290. Helping to Give a Voice to the Deaf Community with Jennifer Southall

Episode #290

We’re continuing our series at the Athlete’s Voices event which highlights exceptional athletes doing extraordinary things in the world. Today’s guest is Jen Southall, a certified hockey coach for the Portland Winterhawks and a disabled representative for the Junior Hockey Association and several other sports associations. She has more than 25 years of experience playing hockey and advocating for the accessibility of the deaf community.

Playing sports as a deaf person came with its challenges. Jen was always the only deaf person on her team. She started playing at a young age, but she didn’t have full access to people who could help her communicate until high school. She had to rely on her teammates to look out for her. She mostly stopped playing hockey after high school, but when her son wanted to start playing hockey — and wanted his mom to coach him — she started looking into how she could make access for that. It wasn’t until she entered that world that she realized how little advocacy there is for the deaf community.

The challenges the deaf community face are many, and most of them are invisible to us. Jennifer asks us to imagine a family gathering with people around the dinner table, everyone’s laughing, but nobody has taken the time to share what they’re laughing about. It can be very isolating. And finding environments that accommodate the deaf experience is difficult.

 

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“Respect the deaf community. Respect our language. Respect our culture. And give us the platform, not you running a platform for us, because it’s not your place. Let deaf people have our place.”

 

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