Rachel’s film wins plaudits

MOVIE star . . . Rachel’s film featuring fellow students with disabilities will be shown in other universities

STUDENT Rachel Jones Hind has gained national recognition for a film promoting University Campus Oldham to disabled people.

The digital arts student, who is registered blind and has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, directed the feature on accessibility as part of her final-year project.

Now other universities, hospitals and the National Union of Students want to use the six-minute film after it was shown at the national Degrees of Independence conference at Huddersfield University.

It features students with hearing, visual and mobility impairments and Rachel (24), of Poplar Street, Failsworth, said: “The idea is to promote how accessible the university is to people with disabilities.

“When I went to other universities for open days they were like death traps. UCO is is well laid out. It’s smaller, the classes are closer together, everything is easy to get to and the support in brilliant.”

The former St Augustine’s School pupil studied IT at Oldham College before doing a degree at UCO, part of Huddersfield University.

The film was produced by digital journalism students from the campus while others did the animation and music.

UCO head Debbie Bridge said that the campus could be flexible and adapt to students’ needs because of its smaller size.

She added: “We will deal with whatever is thrown at us and students who have been through the system say we have done that really well.”

Rachel’s next task is to produce different versions of her film featuring subtitles, text and a voice-over. To view it visit http://library.hud.ac.uk/blogs/oldham/category/digital-journalism/