TQM report,
Lionheart Ability Leaders International Foundation, LALIF in conjunction with Lagos State office of disability affairs organized a One Day Capacity-building workshop on effective communication systems and teaching methods for individuals with deaf-blindness.
The Workshop with the theme: Building a future for individuals with deaf-blindness in Nigeria is an activity from the LALIF’s Disability Rights Fund (DRF) sponsored project, it is designed to train teachers, parents/ relatives/friends of individuals with deaf blindness.
The Executive Director of LALIF, Solomon Okelola in his speech identified that their challenges towards inclusive education is lack of communication and inaccessible learning materials and the limitations have made the teachers to sideline deaf-blind children in schools.
He pointed out that one of greatest challenges faced by deaf-blind persons in Nigeria is the public lack of capacity to relate, educate and socialize with them, lamenting non-inclusion of deaf-blindness in education system in Nigeria which is as result of most special school teachers not having the requisite knowledge or expertise to communicate effectively with deaf-blind individuals. That’s why a lot of deaf-blind children are not in schools.
“It is pertinent that we understand the peculiarities of deaf-blindness in order to meet these needs, special teachers need to learn how to communicate with, understand, and teach deaf-blind children so that they can learn alongside others. It is difficult to educate us because of our visual and hearing loss but there are still ways we can learn such as the use of braille, touching sign language, large pages and raised letters, moon writing and padona method of speech reading” he added.
Mr. Okelola lamented the exclusion of the deaf-blind at the recently concluded data collection of Persons with Disabilities by the Federal Government through National Commission for Persons with disabilities (NCPWD), saying that since the exercise required going out to the centres to be captured, he was doubtful that deaf-blind persons were captured because majority of them are kept away from the public by their parents and relatives who lack knowledge on how to manage deaf-blindness and get them involved in everyday life.
“Deaf-blindness is alien to the disability community, that’s why our cluster was omitted in the data collation form and we are not recognized as a cluster within the disability organizations “he revealed.
He pointed out that most medical practitioners are not aware of Ushers syndrome as the major cause of deaf- blindness and this is the reasons we are raising awareness on the education and health for government officials to understand what deaf-blindness is all about and how they can be included.
Mr. Solomon Okelola informed that some of them have low vision, some have residual hearing, both should be considered while in the learning process of deaf-blind persons it is so sad that the core equipment needed by these learning process are not available in Nigeria.
Mr. Friday Azanor, Project manager at LALIF observed that there are no specially trained teachers on the psychology or education needs of children with deaf-blindness as such they are not admitted in school even in schools specialized for the deaf or the blind. This problem has led to abandonment of deaf-blind children to their own fate even when they are in schools.
Mr. Azanor while informing the participants the communication methods required to teach deaf-blind children, proffered that government at all level should facilitate in-service training of special teachers to enhance the skills of communication with deaf-blind children in schools and this special skills of communication should be inculcated into school curriculum to meet the needs of numerous children with deaf-blindness who are presently go through serious difficulties in schools while learning.
In mainstreaming deaf-blind persons in education, he also suggested that a course should be developed on education of the deaf-blind persons which will equip teachers with the knowledge of sign language and other communication methods like braille to teach persons with deaf-blindness in Nigeria.
Disability Rights Fund had the program officer, Mr Theophilus Odaudu in his speech via zoom, called on all stakeholders to join LALIF in achieving the all round inclusion of Nigerians with deaf-blindness. He expressed hope that it is achievable going by the work LALIF is doing towards deaf-blindness awareness in Nigeria.
The Participants who were mostly parents, teachers and government official expressed hope for deaf-blind persons having learnt what Usher Syndrome is all about and some solutions to its challenges, they called for more trainings as it is their wish to know learn more and deploy the knowledge towards enhancing the inclusion of deaf-blind persons in all facets of life.
