Disability is not Inability

::Deaf Statistics in Kenya.

It would be important to note that hearing impairment is the second most prevalent disability after physical disability. Of the majority of the over 3 million disabled Kenyans. Hearing impairment is defined by various degrees of hearing loss from profound deafness to partial hearing loss.

The population of Deaf people in Kenya is about 600,000
The statistics have been built through community mapping using various tools and vehicles. These mainly include deaf schools deaf community organizations and deaf church congregations.

The figure of 600,000 is developed from community mapping that shows that over half are supposed to be at various levels of the education system. Of these, there are an estimated 300,000 of school going age.

These include those in school from primary to secondary residential regular schools and Vocational Training. These include Units in various schools within local schools.
Yet the majority of these of school going age are actually not in school due to various reasons ranging from lack of parental awareness to lack of ability to afford school fees.

The majority of the rest are of the young age but under 40 years of age. These are mainly found in slum areas and the rural community. Most are past regular school going and are of low educational ability. Most also have better sign language skills due to various interactions with community members. very few are organized into various community based organizations. Many are not members of various budding community based organizations for the deaf. They CBOs are good guides to community mapping

It is instructive to know that many deaf people do not necessarily know how to read or write and are also of various competences in Kenya sign language. Most use local versions of Sign Language.

Various religious organizations organize facilities for the Deaf to be able to have access to churches translated in sign language. The Catholic church, Presbyterian church of East Africa (PCEA) and Baptist church among others are the leading organizations working with the deaf according the last community maps of 2004. They have established units that provide sign language translated services to various deaf communities countrywide. These are integral vehicles to map the community outside the normal census.

The final mapping tool is the local administrative authorities. This is however unreliable since they are not clearly defined in the minds of many Assistant Chiefs, Chiefs and DOs. Many church leaders, community leaders etc also clump the disabled together. Household surveys are therefore quite unreliable.

Category: Community

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