Sports for Everyone: CITS Arranged a Series of Aikido Sessions for Deaf and Hard-Of-Hearing People

CITS provides permanent language practise for their course graduates within the framework of the Inclusive Linguistic Environment project. During the whole year, graduates of Russian Sign Language courses have been improving their skills and studying vocabulary related to various spheres of life of the deaf community – legal, medical, and theological. Now was the time for sports. Thanks to the Astrakhan Aikido Federation, they had the opportunity to practise interpreting sports events this August. Aikido sessions were very dynamic and informative, the participants got acquainted with the history of this sport, learned how to fall correctly and even mastered several techniques.

However, the course graduates faced a number of difficulties during the interpretation. For example, there are some Aikido exercises that require your eyes to be closed. It was necessary to cope with the constant loss of eye contact, when deaf and hard-of-hearing participants had to observe the movements of the trainer and not the interpreter, in order to correctly perform the technique. However, thanks to the well-coordinated work of interpreters, trainers and the participants’ confidence, nothing stopped the deaf and hard-of-hearing participants from immersing themselves in the world of Aikido.

The Inclusive Linguistic Environment project won the competition Practices of Personal Philanthropy and Altruism of the Vladimir Potanin Charity Foundation, which made it possible to arrange this series of sessions. 

Now graduates of our courses can not only stand up for themselves, but also provide linguistic support at any sporting event.