Connecting worlds: Stray Sheep and Ucha.se partner up for more accessible education
Companies worldwide are trying to make work and education more inclusive and more accessible. So are Stray Sheep and Ucha.se from Bulgaria.
Ucha.se is the biggest educational platform in Bulgaria that offers additional help to students at school. Digital, colorful, and fun to use, Ucha.se quickly became the best friend of teachers, parents, and students themselves. The EdTech startup, founded by Darin Madzharov in 2012, offers a full palette of subjects – mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, languages, and even political education.
Thousands of entertaining video lessons and tests for all grades have been developed in accordance with the public school system in Bulgaria and over 60% of schools in the country already have a subscription to the platform. These lessons have been watched millions of times and the feedback from the users is amazing. No surprise Ucha.se has so many awards – from Forbes through Best Startup in Bulgaria to Best Science & Education project.
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Now Ucha.se makes another step towards accessible and quality education by providing sign language translation. Stray Sheep, a social startup that aims to build bridges between the Deaf and Hearing, and the Academy for Deaf Children “Andy and Aya” will assist the educational platform to translate its content also for children with hearing disabilities.
The video lessons of Ucha.se for students in 1st to 4th grade are now available with sign translation on the Ucha.se website. This provides an opportunity for all 8,000 deaf children, youth, and parents in Bulgaria to have full access to education. The videos are translated by children between the ages of 12 and 18 and sign language experts.
The initiative is the only one of its kind in Bulgaria and provides an opportunity on one side for deaf children to learn about the world, and on the other hand, for the world of hearing people to gain more knowledge about sign language.
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The sign interpreters of the lessons are deaf children. The videos are translated using a technique called two-level sign translation. Behind the camera stands a hearing sign interpreter who listens to the text, passes it to the deaf child, and transforms the content of the lesson into understandable and interesting language for his peers.
It is no coincidence that the sign narrators are deaf children and young people. The campaign aims to make them role models for their peers and encourage all students to follow their dreams and study their lessons with interest.
The next stage of the campaign “Learning Sign Language Lessons” is the translation of the teaching material from 5th to 7th grade, again with the assistance of Stray Sheep and Academy for Deaf Children “Andy and Aya”.
