Name Change

The Royal National Institute for Deaf People or RNID, is changing its name to Action on Hearing Loss in honor of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the charity. The UK organization hopes the move will also clear up some confusion. Based out of London, RNID was sometimes confused with the sight loss charity RNIB or the lifeboat charity RNLI. The new Action on Hearing Loss has also launched a new website which you can see here, includes free hearing tests. A deaf banker by the name of Leo Bonn founded the group in 1911 as the National Bureau for Promoting the General Welfare of the Deaf. It became the National Institute for the Deaf in 1924 and in 1961 the Queen approved the addition of the "Royal" prefix, creating the Royal National Institute for the Deaf. The Institute began work in the areas of medical and technological research during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1992, the Institute changed its name to the Royal National Institute for Deaf People but kept the initials RNID.