GREEN HOUSE PARENT’S SIGN LANGUAGE LESSONS

Date: 13/12/07
Report by: Shiroh Muiruri

Parents who have children at the Green House have been very co-operative, each one of them has a duty to participate in the school activities especially when it comes to cleanliness. The parents are expected to bring water in the school in case there is no water in school, they have also been assigned duties to help in keeping the school compound clean, they wash the toilets and the classroom as well. They also help in cooking food for the children incases where our cook is sick or absent. The purpose of these duties is getting the parents to be involved in the school activities and also to bring them together and to unite them.

The senior teacher in the Green House started a sign language program for parents. Communication in families of deaf children here in Kenya is very big challenge, most of the parents and the siblings of deaf children do not have sign language skills and it is therefore very difficult to communicate. The deaf children find it very difficult to express themselves to their parents and this sometimes can result to their needs not being met fully.

Most families use gestures to communicate. It is because of this that sign language lesson for the parents was started in the Green House. Every Saturday afternoon parents of the children in Green House come together to learn sign language. According to Patrick who gives these lessons. He says that the parents are very interested in acquiring these skills. Thy are very attentive and they are also very inquisitive!

To begin with he is giving them the basic sign language skills like greetings, grace and courtesy. The parents seem to be amazed at how easy it is to learn sign language. They also have a lot of fun while they learn this lessons. The teacher encourages then to use sign language amongst them while they undergo the training. He also emphasizes the importance of practicing because practice makes perfect!

The sign language teacher has also been telling them the importance of using sign language at home and as a family he has been encouraging them to teach their spouses and their hearing children at home whatever they have learnt at school so that the whole family can have the sign language skills. So far not all the parents have been able to attend this lessons this is because some of them are single parents and they therefore spend a lot of time looking for jobs to be able to feed their children. Most of them have no stable jobs. Others have small children and they do not have anyone to leave their children with so that they can have some free time to attend the lessons. This is one of the challenges because some parents are getting the skills while others are not.

During this term also there was a seminar organized by an NGO called Life Skills. This organization held a seminar for parents who have children with disabilities. They invited four parents from Deaf Aid. The aim of the seminar was to teach the parents issues affecting their children with disabilities and how they can be able to help them. They were trained and they were also given a duty to go and train other parents. The theme of the seminar was: “Disability and Training of Trainers”

Deaf Aid choose two parents from Gianchere School for the Deaf to come to Nairobi and attend the training and two parents who have children in the Green House. Deaf Aid paid food, transport and accommodation for the parents who came from Kisii and food and  transport for the parents from Kibera.

I believe it is very important to empower parents of these children so that they can be able to bring up their children like any other child without facing many challenges. It is therefore our duty to encourage them and try and assist them whenever we have a chance.