International Week of Deaf People
21st –27th September 2026 marks the International Week of Deaf People. This is an incredibly important awareness week that highlights how D/deaf communities express their experiences, history, identity and cultures around the world.
The theme for 2026 is highlighting Deaf people’s Human Rights. This aligns with key milestones that were celebrated this year, including the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD) and 75 years of the World Federation of the Deaf.
This week serves as an opportunity for both hearing, non-hearing, and hearing-impaired people to learn more about deafness and how far D/deaf activists have come to challenge cultural attitudes and improve D/deaf visibility across legal and social platforms. Deafness is a lived experience and is different for every person. Some people capitalise the ‘D’ to signify the shared culture and linguistic identity of the Deaf community that is separate from the hearing world. Others use a lowercase ‘d’ to show that they interact with the hearing world and may choose to use hearing aids or cochlear implants.
A huge part of D/deaf experience and engagement with the world is through visual communication. There are 300 official sign languages used across the world, each as complex and intricate as the other. It is an essential right that D/deaf learners are able to access their national sign language to support with development, identity and inclusion. Yet, as 18 million people in the UK are D/deaf, only around 87,000 are fluent in British Sign Language (BSL).
BSL lessons are expensive and not readily available, impacting those who do not have the resources to learn natively. This, along with other factors such as 9 out of 10 D/deaf children being born to hearing parents and, out of those, only 1 out of 10 having access to learn BSL, can significantly decrease the chances of a D/deaf child developing their language learning. This is even more alarming when studies estimate that only 30% of spoken English can be understood using lip-reading, leaving even the most skilled lip-readers to guess around 70% of the conversation.
A lack of national sign language resources can further impact D/deaf adults, especially in the workplace and across public services. 25% of D/deaf adults say they have experienced negative attitudes from work colleagues, as have nearly half of BSL users.
Accessibility is a human right. However, it cannot be achieved until all people, regardless of need, are given the tools and adjustments to gain full, equal access to education, places of work, training and public resources. Therefore, let’s use this week to not just celebrate the resilience and empowerment that comes from D/deaf communities, but to act on the challenges still faced.
Resources:
International Week of Deaf People 2026 | Royal Deaf
British Deaf Association – The BDA stands for Deaf Equality, Access and Freedom of Choice.