Good listeners in the realm of the deaf

Angus MacDonald founded the Star Sign, believed to be the only cafe of its type in the world, partly to offer jobs to deaf people. Picture / Greg Bowker

The Star Sign looks and feels like any other cafe on Auckland's busy Dominion Rd. The coffee machine hisses, groovy music wafts, and the three young women at the next table are having a jolly good gossip, punctuated by peals of laughter.

To discover what they are nattering about, I ask cafe founder Angus MacDonald to do the deaf community's equivalent of an eavesdrop - a long look over his shoulder at their flying hands and expressive faces.

He translates, laughing, and confirms that cafe gossip is pretty much the same whether you live in the deaf or hearing worlds.

Mr McDonald, 42, was born deaf for reasons unknown but is a skilled lip-reader, speaker and user of New Zealand Sign Language. A regional co-ordinator for Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, he set up the cafe as an incorporated society, so it can attract charity funding.

The aim: to provide training and jobs for deaf people and a chance for them to interact meaningfully with the hearing world.

McDonald, who is married to a hearing wife and has an 18-year-old hearing son, says deafness poses him few barriers because he speaks well. He gained some hearing five years ago thanks to a cochlear implant.

But not all deaf have been so lucky, he adds: many struggle with education, jobs and discrimination, and he wanted to help.

The year-old Star Sign, believed to the only cafe of its type in the world, is a popular centre for the deaf to gather (it's near the Auckland Deaf Society rooms). But it's open to all, doing a standard menu and excellent coffee. (A Herald reviewer this year gave it three marks out of five.)

It's a shame, then, that a lot of hearing people come to the door, hesitate about the unknown that might be within, and disappear.

And it's a mild worry to MacDonald and cafe manager Darryn Paul, who was born deaf 40 years ago through rubella, that business has become erratic since a shiny chain coffee store opened nearby.

Staff try to overcome any visitor discomfort with smiles and a word of welcome, says Mr Paul. You can scribble down your order, speak clearly to staff as many lip-read, or just point at the menu.

That said, learning the signs is fun: they seem logical and are memorable. A cup of coffee is a circular grinding motion with your right hand poised above your left palm. The sign for "muffin" evokes a fat cupcake.

For those who pass the cafe every day, that graphic on the doors showing an upheld hand with the two middle fingers curled down is the internationally-recognised symbol for "I love you".

And yes, in case you were wondering, sign language does indeed lend itself to dirty jokes.

* The Star Sign Cafe is at 365 Dominion Rd, Auckland central. Open 7am-3pm daily.

* Jenny Pevreal, a Hamilton hearing-impaired wife, mother, farmer and full-time student, has been awarded the Quest for Excellence Scholarship for deaf and hearing-impaired people.

The $15,000 award, by the Foundation for the Deaf and the Deaf Association, will fund her University of Waikato masters degree in clinical psychology.

Hearing loss

* More than 400,000 people suffer hearing impairment, which ranges from profound deafness to partial loss.

* An estimated 7000 are profoundly deaf, using sign language to communicate. But up to 21,000 more are able to communicate in sign language, among them relatives, family members, teachers and interpreters.

* Up to 60 per cent of people over the age of 65 are thought to have some sort of hearing loss.

* Hearing loss is second only to occupational overuse syndrome as the most prevalent workplace-caused disability.

* The age at which hearing loss is being discovered is falling, due to an increasingly noisy environment and the popularity of earphone-fed portable music.

* Deaf Awareness Week runs to this Sunday.

Source: National Foundation for the Deaf