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Blackburn woman triumphs over adversity to be named the silver winner in national business hero awards
A Blackburn woman, who has triumphed over personal adversity to successfully establish her own business, has been named the Silver Winner of The Barclays Trading Places Awards, scooping over £5,000. Debra Reynolds started School of Sign Language less than two years ago after battling with depression. A single mother of two little girls, she was in debt and fighting to make ends meet. Moreover, Debra has impaired hearing, which meant she had struggled through school and left with no qualifications. In spite of her problems, she wanted to help other young people with hearing difficulties and enrolled as a volunteer for a local Deaf Charity. The bills were still piling up, but Debra found a new sense of purpose. She took a British Sign Language course and discovered there was something she was good at, that could make a difference to other people's lives. When she was offered a part-time job at the Charity she thought her dreams of becoming a British Sign Language Interpreter were about to come true but then, just four weeks before Christmas, her manager told her that funding for her job had run out. Refusing to give up, Debra struggled on, continuing to study while providing communication support for other deaf students at colleges in her area. Then she realised she could achieve far more by setting up her own business. The School of Sign Language was established in April 2006 to provide on-site British Sign Language and Deaf Awareness courses, an interpreting service and a recruitment agency for Communication Support Workers. It aims to break down barriers between the deaf and hearing communities, address the dire shortage of interpreters and create employment opportunities for deaf people. The last 12 months have seen highs and lows for Debra. In July she nearly lost her life, due to a severe internal haemorrhage. She has moved into offices, employed a staff of deaf and hearing workers, full-timers and volunteers, and has delivered taster courses in signing to more than 5,000 children, as well as picking up a good range of clients. With her health still a major issue, Debra is full of plans for the future, including raising funds to franchise her School of Sign Language, and is adamant that if you have a dream, nothing should stop you achieving it. John Davis, Barclays Marketing Director for Local Business and Chair of the judging panel, said: "The quality of entries this year was exceptional but the judges agreed that School of Sign Language shone out as a real-life example of an outstanding business that has thrived despite what seemed like impossible odds. "All of us congratulate Debra Reynolds on being named the Silver Winner of the 2007 Barclays Trading Places Awards and we hope her inspiring story will prove to other people that self employment can be hugely rewarding if you've got a dream and the guts and determination to make it work." Barclays Trading Places Awards, supported by Jobcentre Plus, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) and The Prince's Trust, were launched earlier this year to recognise men and women who have overcome various barriers and battled against the odds to positively change their lives by setting up a business. Barclays, which is spearheading the Awards, aims to champion small companies by providing extensive localised knowledge and award winning services - 80,000 fledgling entrepreneurs got their feet off the ground last year with Barclays' support. Debra wins the Silver prize of £3,000 cash from Barclays, £2,000 worth of directory advertising from Thompson Local Directories, plus software worth £450 courtesy of Microsoft. National judges include John Bird, founder and editor-in-chief of the Big Issue; John Davis, Barclays Marketing Director for Local Business; Ian King, Business Editor of The Sun; Robert Cuming of The Prince's Trust; Eileen Thomson of Jobcentre Plus; Ann Carter-Gray of BERR; Raj Kakar of Thomson Local Directories and Jane Fletcher of Leonard Cheshire. www.princes-trust.org.uk
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