Ellie Parfitt has been nominated for Signature's 2018 Leadership Award for using her blog as a platform for positive change.

The activist, who has been deaf since birth, uses her own experiences and knowledge of overcoming adversity to help others who experience similar challenges.

The huge success of her blog Deafie Blogger, which is about the 'day to day challenges, real life barriers and achievements in a deaf person's world' has allowed her to give deaf awareness presentations, campaign with organisations, and work alongside charities to help educate and improve society for the next generation.

Miss Parfitt said: 'It's such an honour to be short listed for Signature's Annual Awards. My role as Deafie Blogger is trying to do as much as I can to help other deaf people, to reduce the struggles they face on a daily basis and to help raise deaf awareness everywhere I go.'

Deaf charity Signature is in its 10th year of the annual awards which form a large part of the charity's work to recognise people like Miss Parfitt who are going above and beyond to improve access for deaf people.

In past years business leaders, community groups, volunteers and teachers were among those to receive the prestigious awards.

Lindsay Foster, executive director at Signature said: 'To see so many inspirational nominees come together to celebrate the tenth year of the Signature Annual Awards is fantastic.

'We're proud that Signature is able to offer recognition to those who are truly making a difference to the lives of deaf and hard of hearing people, and we hope our nominee's use the awards as a platform to carry on their amazing work.'

Judges will select this year's winners from the shortlist and announcements will be made at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead on Friday November 9.

Other short listed nominees include Specsavers for its British Sign Language (BSL) Training initiative, Transport for London (TFL) for supporting Deaf Awareness week, and Mark Stock, an enthusiastic BSL student who uses his skills to educate and teach his colleagues at Barclays in Canary Wharf.

On her blog Miss Parfitt says her motto is: 'Deaf people can achieve anything they dream of, given the right support.'