West Harbour business with attitude

Making sure New Zealand Sign Language is accessible to all is an aim of an Upper Harbour finalist in this year’s Attitude Awards.

West Harbour resident Victoria Lessing was announced as one of three finalists in the Attitude Entrepreneur Award category for her business Merge NZ, which aims to raise the profile of New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL).

The mother of two said part of Merge NZ’s work was to have NZSL taught by qualified, trained tutors, who were also users of the language themselves - a service that didn’t exist before.

‘‘We want to see NZSL being normalised in our country by encouraging all New Zealanders to experience and work with this beautiful language, so we all can appreciate this is one of our three official languages - equivalent to te reo Ma¯ ori and English.

‘‘We want deaf people to know they can get jobs and live good lives in New Zealand too,’’ she said.

Lessing said the company advocated for both hearing and non-hearing school students to learn NZSL, as well as university students, businesses and the adult community at large.

The idea came about last summer, where Lessing happened to be chatting with another mother now her business partner - at the NZSL Family Camp about the importance of NZSL being more widely recognised.

They then established a name and concept for the organisation.

The Russian entrepreneur lost her own hearing when she was two-years-old.

Her family decided to immigrate to New Zealand from Latvia, when Lessing was 14 to ensure their daughter would have better education and employment opportunities.

Attitude general manager of partnerships and judge Tanya Black said while Merge was relatively new, it had a ‘‘quite a grand scope’’ in terms of helping the whole of society to understand and access both Deaf culture and NZSL more easily.

Lessing’s work with the Deaf community and vivacious personality were well-known, as was the positive way she taught NZSL, Black said.

‘‘She makes [NZSL] really accessible and encourages people just to give it a go, and that’s a really good attitude to have because that gets people to sort of jump in.’’

The 10th Attitude Awards will be held on November 9.