“Being deaf is not a blessing in disguise but a blessing which was born itself”
These words of wisdom encapsulates the spirit of the DeafSA in improving the lives of approximately two-million deaf or hearing impaired people in South Africa during National Deaf Month in September. Being deaf is not a disability but rather a unique culture and something that adds diversity to our unique country.
According to Christopher Nair, provincial director of DeafSA in Mpumalanga, the main focus is on bettering understanding of deaf people in South Africa.
“Our eyes are our ears. It is all about creating awareness and improving conditions for these people. DeafSA is responsible for a number of awareness activities. For example, we do campaigns where we go to schools as well as police stations, organisations, prisons and other and we teach them sign language.”
Employment falling on deaf ears
For now DeafSA’s greatest challenge is the non-existence of deaf schools around Mpumalanga. “Education is a major problem area with most deaf people in this province having to travel to others to get a good education.”
“Deaf people are unemployed and they struggle to get work, because they lack education. Due to the fact that there are no deaf schools, the level of education has become low. Many deaf people do not have matric, and many companies request a National Senior Certificate to be eligible for employment,” said Nair, who is a part of the 98 per cent of the deaf directors in DeafSA.
According to him, many supermarket chains to not provide enough job opportunities for these people. “We have the ability to work hard with our hands and we can do tasks just as well as any hearing person,” he emphasised.
The organisation takes the responsibility of training deaf people in the province. “We have in-house training which can provide basic skills, but there is only so much that we can do as we are not an educational institution.
“We would like small companies to begin giving opportunities to the unemployed. As a return we will then teach those companies sign language so that they can communicate with their employees. We can also send a representative to help with the communication process,” Nair added.
The importance of communication
Communication is also linked back to the constant growth of technology which has become a major part of daily life. Social media and other instant-messaging services featuring predominantly, but has it assisted the deaf community?
“Deaf people do not have money so they cannot afford Internet costs all the time, but they do use Mxit as it is a free messaging service,” said Nair.
Deaf people’s lack of education though also directly affects their ability to communicate with instant messaging or emails.
“They lack the proper grammatical and spelling ability to use English. For example instead of saying I will go to town, they would say I go town.”
There are also a variety of different versions of sign language around the world. In our country, South African Sign Language (SASL) is used which has its own nuances. It has become widely recognised and protected in various legislative and governmental policies. Another type of sign language such as American Sign Language also differs slightly, but communication is still easily manageable between different cultural groups.
“Previously we used American Sign Language as well but since we became a democratic country we have developed our own, but we still respect other countries’ sign language. For example in America they would use two fingers to say hallo, but in South Africa we would use the full hand.”
Education and children
Sign Language Education and Development (SLED) a non-profit organisation which provides kits to DeafSA. SLED focuses on bridging the gap between deaf and hearing persons through deaf education and the promotion of SASL.
“We have a kit to assist the child, with drawing, signs, videos and other material to teach the deaf kid. Normally we would want the parents to join the child in the learning process. Communication is very important,” said Nair.
According to the SLED website, it has conceived, created, developed, and produced 19 SASL literature DVDs and 12 accompanying reading books.
“We will continue to use this kit for training while at the same time we can teach the child easy ways to communicate with families. For example if they are hungry they can simply point to their stomach to indicate their need for food.”
Nair suggests that people who can hear should aid communication with the hearing impaired through written language.
“We can communicate through writing and typing messages, but we can also lip-read so we would like people to open their mouths when they speak to us. At the same time a deaf person can also try and communicate with you by using their lips.”
Another problem that the deaf community struggles with is interpretation of events on television to the deaf community.
According to Nair, it will be ideal if every broadcast could have subtitles and captions as it is sometimes hard to only follow the interpreter.
“People to prefer to read themselves as sometimes through bad interpreting peole can lose important information.
“During the National Deaf Month we are also giving free training to companies. You can contact our offices and we will assist you in this regard. Training takes only one hour and we will assist companies according to their time constraints and availability,” he added.
Mutual respect and understanding between the deaf and non-deaf communities is of vital importance to the prospering of the deaf in South Africa.
Interesting facts
• Deaf represents 4,5 per cent of the total population of South Africa.
• Deaf (with a lower-case “d”) refers to peole who have a hearing disability whereas Deaf (with a capital “D”) refers to people who make use of SASL and who identifies itself with Deaf culture.
• Deaf persons have safer driving records as they are more visually alert.
• The man who invented shorthand, John Gregg, was deaf. Vint Cerf, the father of the Internet was too.
• Only 10 per cent of deaf babies have deaf parents.
• In South Africa, most deaf work as labourers and about 70 per cent are unemployed. The level of literacy of deaf school learners is at grade six level.
• Sign language is completely visual and uses the hands and eyes. It is processed by the brain in the same way speech is processed using ears and mouth.
• There are about 40 Schools for the deaf in the country.
Source: Hi Hopes Programme at the Centre of Deaf Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. www.hihopes.co.za
