First podcast for deaf community to be launched in South Africa
By Keagan Mitchell 
18m ago
Cape Town – The deaf and hard-of-hearing community will now be able to tap into the first-ever South African sign language podcast. Blind History recently launched the first podcast which aims to remove the barrier of information and ultimately introduce deaf audiences to this world.
Now in its third season, Blind History is a crash course in getting to know history’s greatest men and women. The series will tell you things that the history books sometimes leave out and now it is accessible and includes sign language. This will bring compelling, informative, entertaining and inspiring stories to the deaf and hard-of-hearing community.
Blind History is a collaboration between self-confessed history fanatics Gareth Cliff from CliffCentral and managing director of Taylor Blinds & Shutters Anthony Mederer.
CliffCentral.com general manager, Greg Cohen said podcasts can be extremely powerful.
“They are intimate, educational and their on-demand nature allows you to listen to it when and where you want on a range of different devices. Now, for the first time, we are bringing these incredible stories to a new community. We need to embrace inclusivity and not exclusivity,” he said.
Cohen added that podcasts are an audio-only medium and by its very nature excludes the hard-of-hearing community.
“Thuli Zikalala, one of the eleven South African Translators’ Institute (SATI) accredited interpreters in South Africa, wanted to address this and approached us with a concept to make the medium more accessible. This is when we decided to create South African sign language interpreted videos of our content. As far as we are aware, this is a first-of-its-kind concept,” he said.
Mederer said: “We are not historians, but we hope that our keen interest in the historical figures we discuss and some of their lesser- known history rubs off on our audience.
“The wider multi-platform digital campaign that drives listeners to the podcasts is all uniquely created for each episode. Not only are we able to tease and intrigue our audience to listen in but we can also deliver in some lesser known facts in advertising each podcast,” he said.
Zikalala added: “CliffCentral.com and Taylor Blinds & Shutters are an open-minded, forward-thinking team. I value the opportunity to bridge different communities, create awareness to professional South African Sign Language (SASL) interpreters, make content more inclusive and accessible to the deaf and hard-of-hearing community”.
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