‘I have a deaf accent’: Love Island's Tasha Ghouri’s mission to normalise disability

ok.co.uk:

Since appearing on our screens on Love Island in 2022, Tasha Ghouri – the show's first ever deaf contestant – has been an advocate for deaf awareness and representation on our screens , revealing that this is something she is keen to focus more on in her career.

In an exclusive interview and photoshoot with OK! – and marking Deaf Awareness Week this week – Tasha, 25, says she’s glad that it is now slowly becoming more common to see people with disabilities on TV, but more is needed. “I’d love to see more representation on TV as a whole,” she says in the chat. “We’re definitely taking a step in the right direction, but I think it’s still not quite there – it still feels like box-ticking. “I want to continue that momentum by questioning why we can’t have, say, two deaf people on a show, or more than one person in a wheelchair.

It’s about making inclusivity not a surprise.” “My dream is to watch Love Island one day and see just a completely diverse and inclusive mix of people.” To help with this mission, Tasha – who recently announced that she and boyfriend Andrew Le Page have bought a home together and will be renovating it – has a number of projects on the go, including working with the Department for Education to get British Sign Language introduced into schools as a GCSE choice, something she says she’s super exciting about. “I hope that people will take this opportunity to learn sign language and to make deaf people feel more included in conversations,” the Love Islander says. “I wish that I had the option back at school, because I had to stop using BSL and I was forced into using speech around people.” Tasha also revealed that she’s releasing a novel next month, in which the main character is deaf.