Lack of sign language education hinders Service Delivery—Officials in Rutsiro revealed

By Elias Hakizimana.

Various Sectors’ Executive Secretaries from Rutsiro District in the Western Province have raised a serious concern of failure to deliver public services to deaf persons and those of hearing impediment as they are not familiar with sign language.

A clear example they mentioned is conducting civil marriage of couples which, one or both a wife and a husband is deaf, taking this as a difficult examination to teach them about matrimonial perspectives or helping them to take oath in front of the public without having knowledge on sign language.

After revealing it as a challenge, Sector Executive Secretaries call for the government’s intervention to make sign language among the subjects taught to children under the national education curriculum and also help local authorities to learn it in order to deliver inclusive services.

The call was made on Monday, March 29th, 2021 in Rutsiro District during a meeting that gathered officials from Rwanda National Union of the Deaf (RNUD) and district officials to launch the sign language training program.

The meeting aimed at establishing partnership and support from district and sectors officials in supervising and monitoring the program to avoid absenteeism of sign language learners,75 Deaf pig farmers and their family members from four sectors of Rutsiro Districts namely Gihango, Musasa, Mushonyi and Ruhango set to benefit from the sign language training opportunity. The program will run for three consecutive months from March 30, 2021 to July 16th under the UNDP-Rwanda funding.

According to Rwanda National Union of the Deaf Executive Director Munana Samuel, Rutsiro is not only a district that has the biggest number of Deaf in the country but they are sign language illiterate.

“The deaf pig farmers were unable to communicate among themselves in spite of the fact that they are all deaf, and also were unable to access information critical to their wellbeing through sign language interpretations offered in the country, example on Rwanda Television (RTV), and including COVID-19 health translated guidelines set by the government being done by RNUD hence needed to be empowered in Sign language communication skills.” Munana said.

“This will therefore provide them with an opportunity to access information critical to developing their socio-economic well-being by clearly communicating, expressing themselves and understanding the prevailing circumstances of either COVID-19 or of any other government development program. It will also minimize the misunderstandings among them and help them to embrace economic recovery programs that are promoting their increased employment in order to fight poverty through pig farming.” Munana added.

Jean Pierre Mwenedata, Executive Secretary of Mushonyi Sector said that deaf people have many problems including access to service delivery because officials have not the knowledge of sign language.

“I was challenged one time when I had to preside over a civil marriage ritual ceremony of a couple with a deaf person, after learning that he could neither follow nor understand the package of lesson on matrimonial principles. I was lucky enough to have a representative of the National Union of Disability Organizations in Rwanda (NUDOR) in our district who helped me to call for sign language interpreters from Kigali, we gave a special matrimonial education to the couple with the interpretation and we gave them their day of civil marriage. I wish that the government can facilitate all the citizens to learn this language in order to ease communication with deaf people.” He said.

Sector Executive Secretaries welcomed the program of training deaf pig farmers in Rutsiro district.

“We are happy for this initiative and we need to learn sign language too. We use to have challenges especially while communicating with deaf people during the civil marriage.” Said Clemence Uwamariya, Executive Secretary of Gihango Sector in Rutsiro District.

Gaspard Ugirumurera, President of Deaf Pig Farmers’ cooperative in Rutsiro District said that they face various challenges in communicating with the public that also hinder them to get services.

“They get poor medical treatment because they cannot communicate with nurses and local authorities, officials take deaf persons’ cases unserious or not understandable because they do not understand their language; and we end up failing to access services we intended to get. I think if all community members are taught sign language it can enhance the accessibility of service delivery.” He said.

“I remember one deaf person from Ruhango sector who took her case to Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) in 2020 but it was a challenge for the officials to understand the problem the young deaf girl was reporting, due to misunderstanding she was almost being chased away until they called for the sign language interpreter, where they later learnt of how serious her case was and she got helped.” Ugirumurera added.

Emérence Ayinkamiye, the mayor of Rutsiro district said that they made a step by approaching partners to train deaf persons on sign language.

“We could also plan for such training for the local authorities by using part of the district’s budget and call sign language teachers to help. It could not be possible during the Covid-19 period but we are going to train 75 people from 4 sectors and other sessions will embrace later to ensure adequate and inclusive service delivery.” Ayinkamiye noted.

RNUD estimates more than50,000 deaf persons countrywide who confront with various problems related to access to services due to poor communication skills and lack of sign language knowledge.

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