Erin Oliver

I begun the dofe in 2019, 4 months before COVID hit. In that time I managed to complete my sports section, in which I chose judo and am now at 11th mon. I had almost completed my volunteering section, where I was coaching at Sevenoaks hockey club, and I had started to develop my coaching and communication methods. COVID then hit. Luckily I only had one other section to complete: skills. I spent 3 months learning an hour and a half of sign language a week, to help me to communicate with members of the d/Deaf community. I was diagnosed with moderate deafness when I was 11 and I wanted to learn to communicate with others in similar situations to me. Nearing the end of the almost endless restrictions we were fortunate to do our expedition, where our team kept our spirits up and apart from loosing our way a few times we made it to the end! The dofe gave me life skills which I would never have done if the dofe wasn’t there. I want to thank all the staff and leaders who spent all their free time making sure we achieved our full award, because without them, we would have never achieved our award.
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