[Air-L] Opportunity to work as a researcher with a deaf-led charity

[Harry Dyer (EDU - Staff)]

Dear Colleagues,

I have been asked to share the following opportunity to work as a researcher with a deaf-led charity exploring access in arts and culture. The full call can be found here (https://www.stagetext.org/working-for-stagetext/)

Background
Stagetext is a deaf-led charity that provides and advocates for captioning and subtitling of arts and culture, so that deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people have equal access to culture. We work with theatres, museums and other kind of cultural venues to make live plays, talks, conferences, videos and online content accessible, and to train cultural professionals in welcoming deaf audiences.

We are developing our advocacy and research work, with a focus on putting deaf people's stories and experiences in accessing culture at the forefront. The project Stagetext is seeking a freelance research or social history professional to:

  1.  Identify and interview at least ten culture lovers who use captions or subtitles to access live cultural events. We are looking for people who are based outside of London, and who represent a variety of ages and a range of ethnicities.
  2.  Write a case study on each of the people interviewed, with a short summary supported by the transcript of the interviews themselves, a photo if the interviewee agrees, plus data on the age and location of the participant. Case studies will be used to develop communications pieces for publication, and to identify quotes for use on the website and in funding applications.

Candidates should have strong written and verbal skills and ideally should have had deaf awareness training. The majority of deaf caption users have English as their first language, rather than BSL, so there is no specific requirement that the freelancer use BSL. We will provide an interpreter or live subtitles where needed.

Responding to the brief:
The deadline to respond to the brief is 9am Tuesday 11th April. We will hold interviews during w/c 11th April with a view to appoint and for the project to start immediately. Proposals should at a minimum include a summary of your experience, links to examples of relevant work, and proposed timeline and budget. Please email your proposal to Stagetext's Head of Advocacy and Research, Liz Hilder: liz at stagetext.org<mailto:liz at stagetext.org>, who you can also contact with any questions.

All the best,
Harry