The Strictly Come Dancing live tour swings into Glasgow this weekend.
It features professional dancers and celebrities including series winner Rose Ayling-Ellis – Strictly’s first deaf contestant, who has been inspiring the next generation of deaf performers.
Rose and Giovanni Pernice were crowned the latest winners of Strictly Come Dancing just before Christmas.
Week-after-week, Rose defied expectations and educated the public in ways you might not expect from a Saturday night TV show.
The UK Government backed a bill this week to make British Sign Language a legally recognised language across the whole of the UK – and it already has full legal status in Scotland.
Research carried out after Rose’s victory showed that two-thirds of children now feel more confident wearing their hearing aids and 70% said they feel happier talking about their own deafness.
Rose told STV News: “Yesterday, I left my hotel and then there was a mother and a little girl and she was about four-years-old and she came up to me and she was showing me her hearing aid and I said, ‘hello’ and I was showing her my hearing aid and that’s when it hit me.
“It made me realise, a little girl like her has got someone to look up to.”
