Boy wins contest created to show talents of deaf children
A deaf boy from Horsham has won a charity’s national story writing competition which was created to champion the talents of deaf children.
Oliver Pack was announced as the winner in the eight to ten age group of the National Deaf Children’s Society’s Big Story Challenge on Wednesday, March 31.
The ten-year-old’s story ‘The Ginger Ninja’ has now been turned into a signed video story and made available to view on ITV’s Signpost Productions website.
Oliver’s mum Emma said: “It was a lovely surprise when we found out Ollie’s story had won.
“He’s very excited about winning and loves how the story has been converted to video. We’re very proud of him.”
The Ginger Ninja is about a plucky crime-fighting ginger root with ninja skills and his battle with arch enemies – the peas.
It was chosen from a raft of hopefuls by a talented judging panel including deaf actor Danny Murphy; host of CITV’s ‘Dare Master’, Sarah Driver; author of Once ‘We Were Witches’ and the Huntress trilogy, Lucy Rogers; illustrator of ‘The
Quest for the Cockle Implant’, and Maya Wasserman author of ‘The Quest for the Cockle Implant’.
Oliver – who lives in Horsham with his parents, Emma and Timothy, and 14-year-old sister Georgie, said: “My friend Arwyn and I came up with the idea for the story when we were at school.
“I really liked watching the signed version of the story and I hope you do too.”
The Big Story Challenge was launched by the National Deaf Children’s Society last year and asked deaf young
people between the ages of eight and 18 from across the UK to write and illustrate their own stories, with the chance to have their work transformed into videos by ITV Signpost Productions.
The competition winners have also been awarded book tokens for their schools.
Amy New, the National Deaf Children’s Society’s young enablement officer and organiser of the Big Story Challenge, said: “Congratulations to Oliver for writing such an inventive and witty story.
“The competition was a
brilliant opportunity for deaf children to show how creative they can be, and Oliver’s entry stood out to our judging panel, who found The Ginger Ninja funny, adventurous and entertaining.
“We think children of all ages will enjoy the story, and we hope it will inspire lots more deaf children to pick up a pen and start writing.”
To view Oliver’s The Ginger Ninja signed video on ITV Signpost Productions, visit https://signpostbsl.com/ post/stories-brought-to-lifefor-competition-winners
The National Deaf Children’s Society supports the UK’s 50,000 deaf children and their families.
The charity helps those children thrive by providing impartial, practical and emotional support, and by challenging governments and society to meet their needs.
For more about the charity’s work, visit www. ndcs.org.uk
To find out more about the National Deaf Children’s Society’s Big Story Challenge, visit www.ndcs.org.uk/ bigstorychallenge