Advertisement
Press Release

“I want to use my platform, while everyone is looking at me, to reflect that attention onto the whole deaf community” Rose Ayling-Ellis speaks to The Big Issue

Rose Ayling-Ellis, Actress and Strictly Come Dancing winner, has spoken exclusively to The Big Issue.

Today (Monday, 17th January), Rose Ayling-Ellis, Actress and Strictly Come Dancing winner, has spoken exclusively to The Big Issue.

Rose is giving her backing to Labour MP Rosie Cooper’s Private Members’ Bill, which seeks to make BSL (British Sign Language) an official language in England: “It’s about having protection for the language. There’s such a long history of signing. We have come such a long way – in the olden days, at schools for deaf children, they would make them sit on their hands or whip them for signing.

She continued: “There are so many traumas in our history but also such a rich history. If it becomes an official language, which we’ve been fighting for all these years, it will be so emotional for us. Because of the massive interest in BSL recently, a lot of people don’t realise how much of a fight the deaf community have had. I want to use my platform, while everyone is looking at me, to reflect that attention onto the whole deaf community.”

She opened up about why it is so important that BSL becomes a legal language: “We hear so many times that a child who has deaf parents will go to a doctor’s appointment with them and they will have asked for an interpreter, but they are not provided, so they make the child translate for their parents. Sometimes they’re having to translate: ‘you’ve got cancer’, or ‘you’re dying’. It’s not uncommon in the deaf community. So, if the language becomes legal, you have more rights. Because no child should be in that situation.”

Rose added: “I came from the hearing world. People who grew up in the deaf world have role models, but they are not so public. So, I’m so glad deaf children now have somebody to look up to – I just can’t believe it’s me.”

She said: “I see videos of little girls dancing and looking at me on the telly. Some of them have started wearing their hair up to show off their hearing aids and they have kids at school asking what is the sign for this? So, it suddenly became quite cool to be deaf. And I love that for children. Cool to be deaf? Amazing!”

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Advertisement

Rose continued: “I’m so grateful for past deaf generations who stepped up and I want to carry on with that. So, there will hopefully be young people now who have even more opportunities than I did.”

She concluded: “I want to use my platform in a good way because it’s so rare. It didn’t happen before. I want to break down more barriers and open more doors – not just for deaf people but disabled people. I can’t waste my platform.”

The Big Issue with the full interview is out now. Please buy a copy from your local vendor or donate to The Big Issue’s Winter Appeal, or subscribe by visiting www.bigissue.com/support.

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

    READER-SUPPORTED SINCE 1991

    Reader-supported journalism that doesn’t just report problems, it helps solve them.

    Recommended for you

    Read All
    Big Issue Invest more than triples investments in 20th year, with £9.4 million deployed to social purpose organisations
    Big Issue Invest MD Holger Westphely.
    Big Issue Invest

    Big Issue Invest more than triples investments in 20th year, with £9.4 million deployed to social purpose organisations

    New way for Big Issue vendors to take cashless payments up for prestigious award
    Big Issue vendor with the fumopay QR code
    Our vendors

    New way for Big Issue vendors to take cashless payments up for prestigious award

    Big Issue vendor Alfie Brew bounces back after being hit by a car
    Big Issue vendor Alfie Brew stands outside Coop in Exeter, his pitch.
    Press Release

    Big Issue vendor Alfie Brew bounces back after being hit by a car

    Big Issue Impact Advisory appoints Sasha Afanasieva as new MD
    Big Issue Impact new MD Sasha Afanasieva.
    Press Release

    Big Issue Impact Advisory appoints Sasha Afanasieva as new MD

    Most Popular

    Read All
    Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
    Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
    1.

    Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

    Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
    Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
    2.

    Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

    Cost of living payments: Where to get help in 2025 now the scheme is over
    next dwp cost of living payment 2023
    3.

    Cost of living payments: Where to get help in 2025 now the scheme is over

    Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue
    4.

    Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue