Yes, we are deaf but not hopeless

[Smithtr]

By Joseph Mtebe
At the heart of an organisation that seeks to help deaf children attain their educational goals in the country is not just a soft-spoken woman, who is herself hard of hearing, but also a mother with a heart of gold.

Sarah Nsenga grew up learning the hard way that as a deaf child she had a cross to bear. Being hard of hearing means one does not have the privileges her age mates enjoyed in learning and developing their talents in life.
So, when she had the opportunity, Sarah mobilised other deaf parents to form the Tanzania Deaf Child (Tadec) in their bid to find a way of ending the ‘discrimination’.

Situated at Kunduchi Mtongani, the association is a brainchild of deaf parents, who want a better life for their children, and strongly feel that most deaf families in Tanzania are not only misunderstood, but also unfairly treated and discriminated against.

Three members of the organisation met in 2009 to deliberate on the state of deaf children. They started sharing ideas with a few other parents on how to help their families, locked out of opportunities due to their conditions. Now, the association has 11 members, seven of whom are from ‘deaf families’.

Formally registered in April 2011, the Kunduchi Centre serves as the head office of the association’s activities. But most importantly, it is a training centre and home.

A number of activities run here on a daily basis – from basic literacy skills (reading and writing) to artwork and sign language.

“It is not just about us, but all deserving deaf children with whom we have contact,” says Sarah. “We also recruit deaf children from the streets and enrol them in the preparatory school.”

Home and school
This, she says, is difficult, but thanks to the support from ward offices and some members of the association, Sarah says they manage to provide a home and school for the deaf.

Through the help of an interpreter, a sign language expert, Olwin Mbangwa, Sarah, other staff and the students manage to tell Sound Living their story.

“We liaise with ward officers who identify and recommend children in their wards with difficulties in hearing. But apart from that, if any of our members knows of a family with deaf children in their localities, they also recommend them to us,” Sarah says.

So, what happens after the children reach the Tadec? At the centre, the children get to learn a number of things. The first skills they acquire is basic literacy, such as reading and writing.

“You’ll be surprised, the majority of children with hearing difficulties are not capable of reading and writing. Parents don’t take them to school because in most cases the facilities needed for the children are not available,” says Sarah.
The mother of three, whose first child is in Standard Two, is not happy that some families are keeping their deaf children at home due to stigma. Her second born is in nursery school while the last-born is still at home.

Sarah quickly points out that something needs to be done to ensure that schools are friendly to deaf pupils. “In many cases parents take their children to school, but learning facilities and the environment there do not provide for a conducive atmosphere to the deaf,” she says.

One of the girls at the centre, Esther Shobo, is now 18 years. But she is still learning basic reading and writing skills. Before she came here, she was enrolled at a school in Mwanza, where she studied up to Standard Three.

She doesn’t know why she was forced to drop out of school. When she came to the centre, she could read and write ‘just a little’, her tutors say. Now, she reads well, and she has mastered sign language.

“I feel happy to be here. I learn to read and write, and also learn art. And sign language too,” she tells Sound Living, in sign language which the interpreter, Olwin Mbangwa, conveys to me.

Other than reading and writing, children also learn sign language, which is the language the deaf communicate in. And Sarah, besides being the reading and writing instructor, is also an expert in sign language. She has also mastered international sign language. The other instructor, Frida Mkumbo, was on maternity leave, during a visit by Sound Living.

Currently, the centre is home to about 12 children. But the major setback, according to Theresia Gugu (the treasurer at Tadec), is getting the children and maintaining a consistent attendance schedule. As a result children come at different times, and so there are no specific terms.

“Most of the children live with families far from the centre, so they need someone to bring them back and forth. The problem is that most parents are petty traders, which makes it difficult for them since they have to juggle the little time they have for business and bringing their children here,” she says.

The other setback, Ms Gugu adds, is that in many families, deaf children have been reduced to being housemaids, helping their parents do household chores the whole day while other children are in school.

“It is unlikely for an ordinary Tanzanian family to willingly pay for their deaf child’s education. They can make sacrifices for normal children, but not for someone hard of hearing,” Ms Gugu notes.

Perhaps one of the most effective strategies used at Tadec is making the children feel at home. This makes learning easier because the environment is relaxed.

But running such a huge family is expensive, and the members say they have been compelled to provide free services due to the poor background of most of the deaf children benefiting from the programme.

“Currently, we’re compelled to run the services and training freely. At first we thought they should have been paying Sh20,000 a month. But we realised later, that most parents are either unable to foot that bill, or have given up on their children,” says Ms Gugu.

And the other challenge is that once the children graduate from Tadec, they face major hurdles seeking a place for school in the mainstream education system.

“When their tenure at Tadec is over, they will have to look for school. Here we prepare them for further learning in regular schools,” says Ms Gugu.

But there are only a few schools that cater for children with hearing problems in Tanzania. In most schools there are insufficient, if any, professionals. Worse still, there are no facilities to train the deaf child.

Talking to Sound Living, Seleman Mohammed, 19, spells out the dilemma many deaf children find themselves in. “The first time I entered a class since birth was when I joined this family in April. But I am now afraid that once I graduate I may go back to what I was doing before, that is, carrying cargo in town,” he says.

But in a quick rejoinder, Sarah says Seleman only needs inspiration. So do the rest of the children around. “He has just started to learn and be exposed to life,” says Sarah, who, apparently, is a source of inspiration to the children around.

Married in 2005 to Apolle Nsenga (also deaf), Sarah and her husband have one son and two daughters, who, unlike their parents, can hear well.

“We have no difficulty communicating with them. They understand us, and they can use sign language too,” says Sarah, who met her 36-year-old husband in Uganda where she was studying.

Her husband also has speech problems, but Sarah says he isn’t totally dumb. “Sometimes he makes audible speech,” she says.

Both Sarah and her husband were born with speech and hearing abilities. It was during the war between Tanzania and Uganda (in the Idd Amin era) that she lost her ability to hear.

She was bed-ridden in a hospital in Uganda due to a severe fever. Unfortunately, there were neither nurses nor attendants to assist her. Everybody had fled the war.

“I was only two years old, and since then I don’t remember ever regaining my hearing ability nor my voice,” she says.

Her husband suffered a spinal cord disease when he was 11 years old. That led to his losing the voice.
Apollo did his primary school in Uganda, where he also studied arts, specialising in drawing and printing.

At that time, Sarah was at Pear College, near Makerere University, where she completed a diploma in design in 2004. Before that, she also had been to Kenya where did her primary education before she left for Tabora, and enrolled at a Catholic owned school for the deaf.

She later joined Moshi Technical School for her O-levels.

Yes, we are deaf but not hopeless