Imagine you attended a college and graduated with second class upper and then you come back to your community with happiness and joy. You try to tell your family about your experiences and challenges but they can understand you. You communicate with them but you don't get any response from them. But you don't give you try harder but it appears like you're disturbing them. You then decide to go to some neighbors to tell them about your plight but unfortunately they too cannot understand you. You go to the local supermarket to buy some things , you tell them you want fruit juice but unfortunately the attendant cannot understand you . You go to the physician and tells him about your problems but he too cannot understand you. To simplify, nobody understands you in your community.
You are not able to communicate with anyone so you are forced to live a solitary life. Can you tell how someone who leaves with a lot of people but cannot communicate with them would feel?
This is exactly how the deaf people feel in Ghana and some other parts of the world. They are given education on sign language in the deaf schools but the people they are going to stay with do not understand the sign language. They are not able to communicate with the people they are staying with. They are not able to tell their problems to their people. If someone does something bad against them, they cannot tell anyone about it.
But I think that should be the case. What I think should be done is to teach both the deaf people and their communities at the same time so as to enhance communication between them. It is each and everyone's responsibility to support a course to remove barriers of communication between the deaf and the community because it could be you in the future, your relative, your friend, child or associates. Do an effort to support the deaf so that you can understand them better.
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Put yourself in their shoes
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