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School for deaf is facing cash crisis (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)
A pre-school for deaf children is set to fall victim to the recession – unless vital funds are raised by the summer.
Staff at The Elizabeth Foundation have told parents the school in Smith Lane, Bradford, will shut on July 10.
The Foundation, a registered charity, is open to families with a hearing-impaired child who are under five. It rents premises from Bradford & Airedale Teaching Primary Care Trust, and also operates a centre in Portsmouth.
Each week some 25 families benefit from the charity’s pre-school, but with grant money drying up, the Foundation has been left crippled with annual running costs of £120,000.
Dramatic intervention is needed if the school is to have any hope of surviving the economic downturn and parent Andrew Midgley hopes his amateur football team can do their bit.
A security surveyor, Mr Midgley and his wife Lisa, both aged 34, of Bingley, send their two-year-old son Christian to the school.
Christian is profoundly deaf and has bi-lateral cochlear implants to assist his hearing.
Mr Midgley has fired up his teammates at Apperley Bridge-based Commercial FC, and more than a dozen players are donning the team kit to take part in the Bradford 10k race on March 29.
Mr Midgley said: “It would be a travesty if it closed. Christian gets one-to-one attention and there is nowhere else in Bradford that caters for deaf pre-school children. We need some serious financial backing to keep it open – they need to raise in the region of £100,000 by the summer to keep going.”
Mrs Midgley said: “It is such an important time for them to learn, listen and eventually learn to speak, which hopefully one day Christian will do. Most parents will have conversations with their children and I hopefully one day will do the same.”
Margaret Southern, senior teacher of the deaf at The Elizabeth Foundation, said: “What makes the situation even more poignant and devastating is that this programme is still a very vibrant and successful one.
“It would be much easier for staff and parents to understand the closure if it was a failing programme. The parents are in shock and disbelief that this lifeline is being withdrawn through lack of funding – the centre is unique in the north of England.”
She said grant making bodies were struggling to support charities because of low interest rates.
A pre-school for deaf children is set to fall victim to the recession – unless vital funds are raised by the summer.
Staff at The Elizabeth Foundation have told parents the school in Smith Lane, Bradford, will shut on July 10.
The Foundation, a registered charity, is open to families with a hearing-impaired child who are under five. It rents premises from Bradford & Airedale Teaching Primary Care Trust, and also operates a centre in Portsmouth.
Each week some 25 families benefit from the charity’s pre-school, but with grant money drying up, the Foundation has been left crippled with annual running costs of £120,000.
Dramatic intervention is needed if the school is to have any hope of surviving the economic downturn and parent Andrew Midgley hopes his amateur football team can do their bit.
A security surveyor, Mr Midgley and his wife Lisa, both aged 34, of Bingley, send their two-year-old son Christian to the school.
Christian is profoundly deaf and has bi-lateral cochlear implants to assist his hearing.
Mr Midgley has fired up his teammates at Apperley Bridge-based Commercial FC, and more than a dozen players are donning the team kit to take part in the Bradford 10k race on March 29.
Mr Midgley said: “It would be a travesty if it closed. Christian gets one-to-one attention and there is nowhere else in Bradford that caters for deaf pre-school children. We need some serious financial backing to keep it open – they need to raise in the region of £100,000 by the summer to keep going.”
Mrs Midgley said: “It is such an important time for them to learn, listen and eventually learn to speak, which hopefully one day Christian will do. Most parents will have conversations with their children and I hopefully one day will do the same.”
Margaret Southern, senior teacher of the deaf at The Elizabeth Foundation, said: “What makes the situation even more poignant and devastating is that this programme is still a very vibrant and successful one.
“It would be much easier for staff and parents to understand the closure if it was a failing programme. The parents are in shock and disbelief that this lifeline is being withdrawn through lack of funding – the centre is unique in the north of England.”
She said grant making bodies were struggling to support charities because of low interest rates.