Disability is not Inability

:: Kenya Society for Deaf Children (KSDC)


The International Deaf Children's Society
Dandora Deaf Group
Nairobi Family Support Services

SYNOPSIS

KSDC received a one-year funding from the IDCS Small Grants Programme (SGP) for a project which focused on training families in Kenyan Sign Language. The project involved over 100 parents from five urban areas.

This case study focuses on a group of parents in Korogocho, an area, which is home to 150,000 people and is considered one of the most densely populated and unstable slums of Nairobi. KSDC faced numerous challenges in reaching parents in this area and many parents were initially unwilling to get involved in the classes. However at the end of the project there were around 20 parents who regularly attended meetings over a three-month period. Attendance was not totally constant due to the difficulties families face in making a living and challenges posed by poverty and HIV/AIDS.

The improvements in family communication that they experienced and the information and support that KSDC offered, encouraged parents to form an organized group. The group aimed to improve access to education for their children and also start a savings scheme.

This project involved KSDC in a new way of working. Where previously, KSDC had focused strongly on the provision of services to deaf children and their families, through the construction of schools, provision of subsidized hearing aids and the development of information leaflets, this project moved towards a more community based style of work

Initially the parents in Korogocho were unwilling to spend time coming to meetings and learning Sign Language. Many of them work in the informal sector, felt that their children needed to learn, not them and found it difficult to commit the time to this activity.

:: IDENTIFYING AND MOTIVATING PARENTS

:: LEARNING SIGN LANGUAGE

:; BEYOND SIGN LANGUAGE - BECOMING A GROUP

:: LEARNING POINTS

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