23 Nov 2015

Love Botswana Outreach Mission co-founder, Ms Jana Lackey has urged parents to take their children with hearing impairment to school instead of neglecting them. 

Speaking at a basic sign language workshop in Maun Saturday, Ms Lackey said it was worrying that a good number of deaf adults with hearing impairment had never been school. 

Ms Lackey said school was a grand platform for deaf children as they could learn proper sign languages at schools. 

Failure to acquire proper sign language at a tender age, she said was a mishap that hearing impaired person would grow with. 

Ms Lackey stated that the government and the public should provide a conducive environment for the hearing impaired people. 

She said the government did a splendid job by providing trained special needs teachers in some schools. 

Ms Lackey noted that Botswana has about 800 people with hearing impairment. 

However, she observed that Maun Senior Secondary School was the only senior school in the country with a deaf unit. 

The public, she said still required sensitisation, adding that those with proper sign languages could volunteer to teach hearing impaired children. 

 A Teacher at Maun Secondary School, Mr Ofentse Sephiri said body language was significant to people with hearing impairment.  

He said there are two kinds of sign languages in Botswana, the Setswana cultural sign language and the professional sign language. 

He noted that community members developed their Setswana sign language to aid communication. 

However, Mr Sephiri pointed out that children were taught in English and professional sign language at schools. 

He therefore encouraged parents with deaf children to learn the professional sign language to teach their children at a tender age. 

Mr Sephiri said children with hearing impairment should be included in all social occasions. 

He said people without hearing problems should also acquire sign language skills to communicate with the deaf. Ends