A deaf woman has won a national award for her work helping deaf parents.

Sabina Iqbal took home the Achievement through Adversity award at this year’s GG2 Leadership and Diversity Awards 09.

Mrs Iqbal, 33, is chairwoman of the Croydon-based charity Deaf Parenting UK, which ensures parents have access to information – including at the time of having a child, when they attend parenting classes, and for midwifery and health visitors who frequently don’t know sign language.

Mrs Iqbal has also been nominated for a Croydon Champions community award for her work with deaf children.

The charity has a website, quarterly newsletter, annual conference and celebrity ambassadors including the Mayor of London Boris Johnson and Markku Jokinen, President of the World Federation of the Deaf.

She said: “I started the organisation eight years ago. There was very little deaf awareness and also deaf parents did not have an informed choice. It was affecting the way they made decisions. I wanted to promote awareness of deaf parenting.”

As a deaf parent herself, Mrs Iqbal had seen first-hand the gaps in service provision, such as a lack of interpreters, and so this became a driving force for her charity.

She was delighted to be nominated for the award, which recognised the hard work she has done to help deaf parents across the country.

She said: “It was really lovely to find out I was nominated. It was quite a shock. I also want to show that as a deaf woman I can do it and be a role model for others who have dreams and aspirations to say they can do it.”

Known as the ethnic Oscars, the awards identify ethnic achievement and celebrate the success of Britain’s non-white minority ethnic communities.

In its 11th year now, the 2009 ceremony took place on Tuesday, September 15 in central London in front of an audience of around 1,000 high flyers from the world of politics, sports and celebrity.

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