September is Deaf Awareness Month in the United States − a celebration dedicated to increasing public awareness of deaf culture and deaf issues as well as recognizing the heritage and language unique to the deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHOH) community.
The month encourages everyone to, among other things:
- Learn about inclusion and accessibility, including the importance of providing captioned content or sign language interpreters in the corporate, classroom, or live sporting and entertainment settings, among other places.
- Discover ways to promote the rights of deaf people and access to education and technologies.
- Educate about the misconceptions of being deaf, and the challenges that the deaf population face in everyday life.
- Understand that individuals who are deaf and hard of hearing are just as capable and able as hearing individuals.
This month also celebrates the “International Week of Deaf People” (Sept. 20-26). An initiative of the World Federation of the Deaf that first was observed in 1958, it is celebrated annually by the global deaf community during the last full week of September. The theme of this year’s International Week of Deaf People is “Celebrating Thriving Deaf Communities,” and will feature daily themes around deaf history, sign language, deaf leadership, and equal rights and opportunities.
The week also encompasses this year’s “International Day of Sign Language” on Sept. 23. The theme for this year’s day is “We Sign for Human Rights.”
VITAC has worked with caption viewers and advocacy groups for more than three decades, and strongly believes in the need to make accessible content standard. We proudly support the rights and needs of the DHOH community, and we stand by our commitment to provide captions and accessible solutions for our clients, while, perhaps most importantly, maintaining the highest quality for our consumers, the tens of millions of Americans who rely on captioning every day.