A start of doing this Deaf History project and blogs – wow!

Many Deaf people in New Zealand have no idea what is our Deaf history or cultures over many years. In the past years, I travelled widely around the world and meet so many Deaf people, museums, their cultures, sign language and arts even in history in Education and clubs.

In New Zealand, we have two small places where the archives held in Schools – one in the South Island and second in the North Island. The van Asch Deaf Education Centre, Sumner, Christchurch have got a website available to the public. There is another website called SignDNA (Deaf National Archives). This website held many videos and photos by the Deaf people who donated to the SignDNA.

Many people asked me if we do have any Deaf history, cultures even NZSL (New Zealand Sign Language) available to the public. I asked them why and their replied were they have no idea about our history and sign language in New Zealand for their schools, colleges, clubs and their organisations.

I thought to myself whether is a decent shot to become a deaf historian in New Zealand or not. mmm, I talked to my family, and they supported me through my University of Waikato. Today I am a deaf historian, and yes I completed the hard works of completed my BA degree.

I decided to write a book about Hamilton Deaf Units since we had the 50th Reunion at the Hamilton West School in 2002.  I also do other research on one person who was Ms Dorcas Mitchell back in the early 1880s. She arrived in Christchurch via Australia from London, UK. She took up the job under Bradley’s family as a private teacher of the Deaf children. Currently, there is not much funding for me to complete the book along with the class rolls, continue to research and write blogs.