🎯The Mission
Commanding Hands aims to help teach people British Sign Language (BSL) for free. We want everyone to learn and use British Sign Language.
We believe that the ability to learn BSL is a basic right for everyone in the UK and there should be no barriers, especially financial ones, to accessing it.
Our promise is to release all of our educational content for free in some format. For example, we’re currently using YouTube and social media to provide tutorial videos while promoting the use of BSL, but if we were to ever launch a physical book in future then we would ensure a free PDF copy is available for everyone.
Communication should never be locked behind a paywall.
The Team (soon)
The faces behind the signs.
👋 About Commanding Hands
The journey of Commanding Hands began on 11th December 2011, founded by Daniel Ryan and Melanie Morris. Daniel, who is hard of hearing and a CODA, and Melanie, a beloved figure in the Leicester Deaf community, shared a vision of a more inclusive society.
For over a decade, we have grown from a local initiative into a national resource. Learners around the UK have helped us to grow an online community of over 120,000 YouTube subscribers, over 20,000 Facebook followers and over 40,000 Instagram followers.
We continue our work in memory of a passionate BSL advocate, Melanie Morris (1969-2019) 🕊️. Her passion for promoting BSL remains the heartbeat of our organisation as we empower people all over the UK to learn British Sign Language.
We want to empower friends and family members to break the silence and build deeper relationships with each other.
📜 Our History
2011
December
Commanding Hands begins
💡 The launch of our YouTube channel featuring videos by Melanie Morris and Daniel Ryan. The aim of Commanding Hands has remained the same since we launched; to help people learn British Sign Language (BSL) for free.
2012
July
Leicester Deaf Club fun day
🎉 Our volunteers help promote Commanding Hands and British Sign Language (BSL) at the Leicester Deaf Club fun day.
2013
February
Free in-person classes trialled
🎓 Melanie Morris led a free British Sign Language (BSL) in-person beginners class as part of trial. Since then, we have focused on helping people learn online.
2014 – 2020
Hiatus
⏸️ Following our initial period of growth, we took a hiatus to allow our team to focus on personal and professional development.
2019
April
Melanie Morris passes away
🕊️ Melanie Morris sadly passed away. Her contributions to Commanding Hands and to the wider Deaf community through her BSL advocacy will never be forgotten.
2020
February
Re-launch and a new logo
🎨 We re-launched with a new logo. The original hand in the 2020 logo was later tweaked for a version with cleaner lines.
2020
April
100 Basic Signs in BSL goes viral
🚀 We released our most viewed YouTube video ever with over 2.3 million views. Throughout the Covid 19 lockdowns, learning from platforms such as YouTube gained more popularity than ever before.
2021
February
Featured in YouTube’s #LoveNotes campaign
❤️ Comments from our YouTube subscribers were featured in YouTube’s advertising campaign seen around the UK.
2024
June
Expanding our reach
📈 We expanded our digital presence by releasing regular educational content across major social media platforms including TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.
2024
June
100k subscribers on YouTube
🙌 Our YouTube channel reached the milestone of having 100,000 subscribers on YouTube.
🚀 Future Aims
As we look ahead to the future, our goal remains unchanged. We want to be the UK’s leading source of free BSL education. We are constantly evolving to meet the needs of a modern, inclusive society.
- 💥 Expanding our content: We are aiming to launch free online e-learning courses by the Summer of 2026.
- 🤝 Building a Nationwide Community: We plan to develop deeper connections between learners and the Deaf community encouraging real-world practice and cultural understanding across the UK.