Open the world to Deaf children through Sign Tech

There’s something magical about the stories shared between grandparents and grandchildren — moments filled with laughter, curiosity, and love. But for many deaf children, this beautiful connection is often missing.

Most deaf children are born into hearing families, and their grandparents don’t know sign language. The stories that should flow naturally — at the kitchen table, before bedtime, during family celebrations — are often lost in silence.

At Canales, we believe every child deserves to receive those stories. Through our project “TELL ME A STORY” (“Contame un cuento”), we bring voices to hands and words to signs, so deaf children and their families can share stories in their own way — visual, expressive, and deeply human.

In this project, elderly deaf adults meet — in person or through video — with deaf children to tell them stories in their natural language, Argentine Sign Language (LSA). During the first stage, eight elderly deaf storytellers visited schools for the deaf to meet young children, sharing time and stories with them. For many children, it was the very first time they had met an older deaf adult — a living link to their own culture.

The stories were then filmed in Sign Language and later voiced in spoken Spanish, so deaf children could enjoy and share them with their hearing families and friends. Young illustrators animated and designed each story, and all videos are now freely available on our website.

In the latest stage, we chose five foundational myths from diverse cultures — The Trojan Horse, Pandora’s Box, The Sphinx, The Seven Scorpions, and Icarus. These timeless stories have been told and retold for centuries; they spark curiosity, challenge our thinking, and reveal human dreams, fears, and courage. Each was adapted into a visual storytelling format in LSA and narrated by elderly deaf storytellers.

One fascinating part of the creative process was finding the sign names of the mythological characters. In all sign languages, people are given a sign name — a unique sign that reflects their personality, origin, or appearance, rather than spelling their name letter by letter. We knew our characters needed their own sign names too.

When we asked deaf schools in Argentina, we found local versions of these names — but we wanted to honor their origins. So, we reached out to the deaf community in Greece, who shared the authentic sign names used there. It was a beautiful way to connect cultures and ensure these stories, passed down through generations, kept their true identity.

The filming process was led by a young deaf woman and involved collaborative rehearsals between the storytellers and our creative team. Together, they refined each expression, gesture, and visual cue to make the myths come alive for young deaf audiences.

This intergenerational exchange is at the heart of our project. We want deaf children to see themselves reflected in role models who are culturally rich, linguistically skilled, and actively contributing to society. And we want to celebrate the wisdom of aging within the deaf community — to show that stories, like people, grow more meaningful with time.

Through TELL ME A STORY, children not only discover ancient tales, but also learn how language can express complex emotions, abstract ideas, and symbolic thinking. This strengthens their bilingual literacy, enriches their imagination, and deepens their sense of identity and belonging.

When you support this project, you help rebuild bridges between generations. You help “grandparents” and “grandchildren” meet again — in a shared space of imagination and love, where stories come alive in hands, smiles, and eyes that truly see each other.

Join us in keeping these stories alive!

Links:

• Canales' site
• Tell me a story
• Workshops between generations