A charity that helps deaf people is facing backlash for its new choice of name – Bury Hearing Hub.
Bury Hearing Hub – previously known as Communic8te Bury – is a charity and social space for d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing (HoH) people in the local community.
Twitter user Emma, who is a hearing child of Deaf parents, expressed her frustration with the rebrand: “ugh i feel so mad about it. pls make it make sense” – receiving over 5,000 likes and retweets.
Bury Hearing Hub hosts a regular ‘Deaf Club’ as one of its activities.
Members of the deaf community expressed their thoughts that the name ‘Hearing Hub’ was insensitive because it focuses on hearing (non-deaf) rather than deaf people.
Daniel Milford-Cottam, a historian who was born Deaf, said: “Honestly, I’m disgusted. The absolute ignorance behind this rebrand is vomit inducing in its tone deafness (pun intended)”.
He added: “It’s so important that deaf people are allowed to be heard, but that doesn’t mean they want to be given places named after the very thing they don’t have and whose absence/lack is their identity.”
Bury Hearing Hub gave a statement yesterday responding to the criticism: “The new ‘brand’ allows the charity to show that it is there to service and support all those with different degrees of hearing loss and Deaf and of all ages etc, something it must do to survive and be sustainable. A ‘Hub’ so to speak.
“A meeting with service users and to which all were invited was held in late 2022 where all of the above was discussed and explained. Users left understanding and happy that in order to protect and sustain the ‘Deaf Club’ which is one activity provided at Bury Hearing Hub for the Deaf community the charity needed to modernise.
“The charity is also in the process of constructing a new website showing that Bury Deaf Club is one of several provisions on offer at Bury Hearing Hub to ensure the Deaf community have clear access to all information.”
Image: Google Maps Streetview, August 2022
