Volunteers behind a deaf club hope to gain charitable status so they can do more to support the hearing-impaired community.

Walthamstow Deaf Club supports dozens of people in the area, with up to 50 members and their families coming every week to their base in the Welcome Centre at St Mary’s Church in Church End, Walthamstow.

The club, co-founded by Jackie Benson, has been open for nine years but nearly closed last summer when its rent at Orford House in Walthamstow Village proved impossible to meet.

But now at its new and cheaper location, with more volunteers, the club hopes it can begin to raise more money to support deaf people, many of whom, claims Mrs Benson, are being hit by the government’s reduction of benefit entitlements as they struggle to find work.

She said: “It’s extra hard for a deaf person to find work at the moment, we want to do all we can for them.

“If someone takes on a deaf person by law they have to have someone there that can sign to them and that is just so rare.

“We have a factory worker and someone in the police but that’s about it. It’s very tough out there.”

She hopes the club can help them by providing more computer equipment to find and apply for jobs but said funding for a voluntary organisation is hard to come by right now.

Treasurer Simon Walker added: “Our dream is to become a charity because then there are many more avenues to apply for donations. We’re in the process of that and have our fingers crossed.
“It’s a real lifeline for people in the area so we hope it will happen.”

The club said it has had one new computer paid for by Waltham Forest Council and that it hopes to begin fundraising to get a film projector fixed as well as save for a day trip for the group.

Mrs Benson said: ““It can be very isolating being a deaf person. Not many people speak sign language and we need more of them, so clubs like this are so important as places to socialise and meet new people.

“A day out is exactly what people need just to have a break from everything.”

The club meets every Wednesday at the Welcome Centre. For more information please visit http://www.walthamstowdeafclub.org.uk.