The Newcastle Deaf Centre serve a community of migrant and refugee families facing deep hardship. Many struggle with food, bills, and basic needs. Thanks to Acts 435, we’ve supported 24 families this year—providing beds, school uniforms, winter coats, and help with rent and baby essentials.
With the kind support of Tyne Central Council and SVP Conferences, we’ve also supplied furniture, kitchenware, and emergency aid to those in crisis. In line with our vision of advocacy, inclusion and education, our support goes beyond finances. Through English classes, conversation groups, employability clinics and upskilling workshops, we’ve empowered people to build brighter futures. This year, several have found jobs or Higher and Further Education places—two stories especially touched our hearts.
This young lady joined the Deaf Centre Youth Group shy and unsure about her future, having been out of school for two years while caring for her siblings. With support, she discovered her passion for hospitality and social care. She completed training, volunteered at a care home, and was accepted into a Level 3 Social Care course at Newcastle College. While waiting to start, she gained more experience through workshops and also secured a summer job with Newcastle United. Her confidence grew, and she’s now on a clear path to a bright future. We couldn’t be more proud of her achievements!
One of our volunteers attended counselling and wellbeing sessions at the Centre. After gaining her trust, she started supporting our DC Make Some Noise events and joined our employability clinics. She trained as a baker and bike mechanic, completed sewing and English classes, and became a women’s group leader. Her passion for working with children emerged during our holiday programme, leading her to complete an Induction to Childcare Course. Now enrolled in a Level 3 Childcare Course and also Level 3 Counselling Course she credits the Deaf Centre as her “backbone” throughout her journey.
In January we coordinated with ITV for the mum of one of our Deaf children to come here and be filmed for an ITV news report on the lack of Auditory Vocal Therapy for children in the whole North East area. Whilst this work later featured in Parliamentary Debate it also opened a door for our closer working with the itv and the SignPost - the North East based production company with a focus on inclusion and diversity in the workplace.
We now have Level One and Two BSL classes running at the Centre and the weekly ESOL class that have number of students that are increasing on a weekly basis.
Going forward, our hope is to upgrade our fifty year old kitchen, and to start a Hard of Hearing (HoH) Lip Readers’ café and a Bereavement café for our Deaf and HoH Community. We know that palliative care and grief counselling are areas, where there is very little support for these communities.
We welcomed the Missionaries of Charity Sisters to our centre in December. They held a retreat and celebrated Mass after which we all shared a meal. Our work with ‘the Sisters’ continue, and together we are able to bring change to more families.
