From Anthony Nwachukwu, Lagos
Just as computer literacy has become a basic requirement in present-day job recruitment and environment, sign language skill will soon become a necessity as the world gets more concerned about inclusiveness, the Friends of People with Disabilities (FOPWD) has said.
Highlighting the prospects of the skill during the launch of the Sign Language Club in Lagos, the non-governmental body, which is also known as Friends of the Disabled (FOTD), said the aim was to end the isolation and discrimination against people with speech/hearing impairment.
The FOTD Executive Director, Lady Aku Christy Orduh, spoke as about 35 children from different districts, different backgrounds and mixed abilities (impaired and non-impaired) excitedly shared, performed and responded simultaneously and alike to single instructors, single instructions during the launch.
The foundation, she said, was also partnering the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) under the Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) to reduce the unemployment gap, where it teaches corps members sign language online.
Orduh noted that apart from being employed as sign language teachers in schools, practitioners can also be employed in mainstream corporate organisations and global agencies, including hospitals, as translators, thereby increasing their employability.
According to her, “the focus is not only to communicate with the hearing impaired but to also acquire a skill to get jobs more easily than those without the sign language ability.
Meanwhile, she called for assistance from “companies that produce what children need most – Cadbury, Indomine, Coca-Cola, Lacasera, 7-UP and those that deal in writing materials, just as individuals are most needed to extend hands of friendship and solidarity with this club.
“As a club, they will be legal and operate with rules and regulations. We look forward to partnering these companies and individuals that want to identify with conquering one disability through learning a language.”
Orduh said the change-making ceremony aimed at celebrating “barrier breakers and emphatic children who have shown and taken to conquer one disability through learning a language, which was made possible with the change to inclusiveness and inclusive approach in the school system.”
She further disclosed that the children were from the inclusive school units of primary schools across all local government areas of Lagos State, who came to the event in solidarity with their peers with hearing/speech impairment to identify with the “Everyone A Change Maker” campaign.
She stressed that the skill was already addressing the job and business challenges of speech/hearing impaired persons, who were having difficulties establishing their own businesses.
“Those who graduated from our vocational centre, especially the females, found it difficult even to progress economically when they established their own businesses. So, Friends of the Disabled started a campaign and public enlightenment to see what could be done.”
The solution, she stated, was learning of sign language and being together to enable them fit into the mainstream of the society following a policy change in education that now allows people with and without disabilities in one school compound.
Following the success of a pilot project in Ereko Methodist Primary School and some private schools in Shomolu, where some children now prefer the Sign Language Club as extra-curricular activity, Orduh said that the drive was yielding “the expected result of getting young children devoted to tackling a social problem through learning a language that is common to them.
“How else could they have learnt it easily and effectively if not by studying and being in the same environment? It is cost effective and the isolation and discrimination are no more there in their body system.”
