Hello everyone!

We (Kirsty and Melissa) are volunteering to help out The Gospel School for the Deaf, located in Suva, Fiji for 2 months and we would be delighted to make our target to raise the money...including some acitives to set the art workshop to teach people learn new skills, and sell things (artworks) in carboot sale and craft fairs.

We have known each other for ten years and met at Mary Hare Grammar school for the Deaf. We are currently in universities and we will graduate this July 2018. We decided to travel the world after graduating to gain confidence and face the challenges this will bring. We had the opporunity of a good education and we would like to volunteer and help deaf children who are less fortunate than ourselves.

We contacted with The Gospel School for the Deaf in Fiji to ask if they needed volunteers as Kirsty knew of someone who already works there. We always want to support deaf children so that they are able to grow in confidence and in their own abilities, as we believe we all have potential to succeed in the future given the oppotunity.

Once students pass their Fiji Eighth Year Examinations, they can progress to mainstream high school classes supported by sign language interpreters. Volunteers are very important to the school, after training we will teach the children maths, english, science, social studies, health, literacy and more.

The school also teaches parents and families to sign so they can learn to communicate with their children. There are many barriers to overcome and we can understand fully the limitations of every day life when it is difficult to communicate.

We would like to be role models and positive influences for the children and use our own experiences of breaking down communication barriers to show deaf children how to use their own language to communicate with us and the wider world.

We are looking forward to the sunshine, the food, making new friends but above all working with the children to encourage them to learn. We will be blogging when there to let you all know how things are going.

Deafness didn‘t stop us from achieving what we wanted and so we will encourage the childen to feel confident to go forward and learn.