Give it a go this New Zealand Sign Language Week
Fire and Emergency is celebrating New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week from 5 to 11 May in support of the Deaf community of Aotearoa New Zealand.
It’s important for our people, especially operational personnel, to know some sign language to communicate with the Deaf community, in case of an emergency.
We’re also better if we reflect the communities we serve. Increasing our understanding of NZSL will help us support our Deaf communities with their needs, mitigate risk, and build their resilience.
NZSL is one of three official languages in Aotearoa. The last census showed that 23,000 people were using NZSL, including about 4,600 Deaf people.
New Zealand Sign Language Week’s theme this year is ‘An Aotearoa Where Anyone Can Sign Anywhere’. To help create this vision, we encourage all our people to learn and use sign language where they can.
Get together with your team or crew and check out the 25 signs to learn for emergencies(external link). It could save a life.
You can also print out posters [PDF, 86 KB] for your area, do a NZSL Week Quiz(external link) (answers here(external link)), or even challenge your team leader to do the Leaders Challenge(external link)!
Show us how it’s done – send your photos and videos to communications@fireandemergency.nz so we can encourage more of us to join in.
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Fire and Emergency’s Disability Network Fire and Emergency's Disability Network serves the 1.2 million people in our communities who live with a disability by improving their fire safety. It also supports people within our organisation who may live with a disability to enable them to continue their mahi through reasonable accommodations and support. If you’d like to learn more or be involved, get in touch at disabilitynetwork@fireandemergency.nz |