Miss-Delectable
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http://www.antiguasun.com/paper/?as=view&sun=281935077507132005&an=400840086511022005&ac=Local
Representatives from the Caribbean Christian Centre for the Deaf (CCCD) are on island this week as the organisation seeks to build ties with the deaf community in Antigua & Barbuda.
The CCCD is based in Jamaica, where it maintains three schools for the deaf and the Jamaica Deaf Village. The three campuses of the CCCD cater to 250 deaf students and employ 25 deaf adults.
The organisation also has an office in West Virginia and maintains ties to groups that work with and advocate for the hearing impaired around the region.
Managing Director of the CCCD Donville Jones and his wife Phyllis, who is a special administrator with the organisation, are visiting Antigua as they seek to forge links with this island.
In fact, the CCCD has selected Antigua as the site for its next annual regional camp. The camp is scheduled to be held in April 2006 and will attract deaf children and adults from Jamaica, St. Vincent, St. Lucia and Grenada, who will join their Antiguan counterparts for a week of fun and fellowship.
To facilitate the programme, HERO International has donated the use of its facilities to the camp.
The CCCD representatives have already paid a courtesy call on Minister of Education Bertrand Joseph, met with representatives from Hands That Speak and visited the Antigua School for the Deaf to highlight some of the organisation’s vocational training programme offerings for the hearing impaired.
Currently, there are no skills training programmes that cater specifically to the deaf in Antigua.
“Salvation is our primary goal, strongly followed by education and vocational training, realising that a deaf person needs to be able to earn a living. Our vocational training programme has developed over the years and we are now offering HEART (Human Employment and Resource Training) level training,” Donville Jones told the SUN.
The HEART programme is a national training initiative in Jamaica.
Among the programmes available at the CCCD’s main campus in Knockpatrick, as well as its smaller Montego Bay and Kingston campuses are food preparation, woodwork, cosmetology, information technology and garment construction.
All courses are taught by qualified teachers who are sign language capable.
Jones and his wife Phyllis became involved in the ministry to the deaf after their first child was born deaf.
Phyllis Jones chronicled some of the difficulties they faced as parents in the late 70s and 80s as they sought to provide their daughter with a good education at a time where the facilities for the deaf were not yet available.
Eventually that daughter, Phyllicia, was able to excel in a mainstream school, finished college and is now married with a daughter of her own.
Jones speaks proudly of those graduates who have gone on to successfully complete studies at universities in the US and those who excel in their chosen professions.
An important effect of the CCCD’s efforts to empower the deaf and raise their profile in Caribbean societies, he said, as more people are beginning to respect the fact that the deaf can be productive members of the society.
Representatives from the Caribbean Christian Centre for the Deaf (CCCD) are on island this week as the organisation seeks to build ties with the deaf community in Antigua & Barbuda.
The CCCD is based in Jamaica, where it maintains three schools for the deaf and the Jamaica Deaf Village. The three campuses of the CCCD cater to 250 deaf students and employ 25 deaf adults.
The organisation also has an office in West Virginia and maintains ties to groups that work with and advocate for the hearing impaired around the region.
Managing Director of the CCCD Donville Jones and his wife Phyllis, who is a special administrator with the organisation, are visiting Antigua as they seek to forge links with this island.
In fact, the CCCD has selected Antigua as the site for its next annual regional camp. The camp is scheduled to be held in April 2006 and will attract deaf children and adults from Jamaica, St. Vincent, St. Lucia and Grenada, who will join their Antiguan counterparts for a week of fun and fellowship.
To facilitate the programme, HERO International has donated the use of its facilities to the camp.
The CCCD representatives have already paid a courtesy call on Minister of Education Bertrand Joseph, met with representatives from Hands That Speak and visited the Antigua School for the Deaf to highlight some of the organisation’s vocational training programme offerings for the hearing impaired.
Currently, there are no skills training programmes that cater specifically to the deaf in Antigua.
“Salvation is our primary goal, strongly followed by education and vocational training, realising that a deaf person needs to be able to earn a living. Our vocational training programme has developed over the years and we are now offering HEART (Human Employment and Resource Training) level training,” Donville Jones told the SUN.
The HEART programme is a national training initiative in Jamaica.
Among the programmes available at the CCCD’s main campus in Knockpatrick, as well as its smaller Montego Bay and Kingston campuses are food preparation, woodwork, cosmetology, information technology and garment construction.
All courses are taught by qualified teachers who are sign language capable.
Jones and his wife Phyllis became involved in the ministry to the deaf after their first child was born deaf.
Phyllis Jones chronicled some of the difficulties they faced as parents in the late 70s and 80s as they sought to provide their daughter with a good education at a time where the facilities for the deaf were not yet available.
Eventually that daughter, Phyllicia, was able to excel in a mainstream school, finished college and is now married with a daughter of her own.
Jones speaks proudly of those graduates who have gone on to successfully complete studies at universities in the US and those who excel in their chosen professions.
An important effect of the CCCD’s efforts to empower the deaf and raise their profile in Caribbean societies, he said, as more people are beginning to respect the fact that the deaf can be productive members of the society.