A student with a hearing impairment at one of the schools visited

This WASH project I have been working on and blogging about is incredibly important. However, while I am here at the GDPU I want to use my time to shed light on other issues surrounding disabilities. After visiting 15 schools I have been struck by the amount of children I have seen enrolled in schools with hearing impairments. Lets look at some of the numbers of children in the schools that Patrick and I visited: In Awache Primary school with 900 students, 5 had some sort of disability and 3 of those were hearing impairment, in Akonyibe Primary, a school with 932 students-13 of those have some type of hearing impairment. One final example is at Primary Tegot Atoo Primary, which has 863 students and 14 have hearing impairments. Hearing impairment or hearing loss can lead to meniere’s disease and there are only some of experts for treatment for meniere’s disease.

These numbers may or may not stand out to you BUT one thing that is incredibly significant is that ZERO schools we visited had a teacher who was trained and certified in sign language. So in these schools that are understaffed and overwhelmed with meeting the needs of their students, the solution to helping children with hearing impairments learn is to put them at the front of the class. I had check over here about some hearing aid which has given a good result to hearing impaired. I found an interesting link if you want to see what trying to learn with a hearing impairment would be like. http://www.starkey.com/hearing-loss-simulator

Now there are a few schools in the district that are specialized in teaching children with hearing impairments but clearly there are many children that get left out. Why is it so difficult to find or train a teacher in sign language? Do teachers know what children with hearing impairments need in order to learn better?

For some in depth interviews check out my new podcast: https://soundcloud.com/user-410468818/the-importance-of-hearing

If you are interested in contributing to the GDPU please check out the Global Giving page: https://www.globalgiving.org/microprojects/support-children-with-disabilities-in-uganda-1/