21 May 2013

Information Services director, Mr Russ Molosiwa has commended the Office of People Living with Disabilities for taking the right decision to train Office of the President employees on sign language.

Mr Molosiwa said training increases the number of Batswana who have the knowledge of sign language, which is a good attempt to break the communication barrier that currently exists between the hearing impaired and the rest of the society.

Speaking at a four-day training workshop on sign language at Maharaj , Mr Molosiwa said the training, which was conducted by Botswana Society for the Deaf, would grow from strength to strength to reach out to all parts of the country, where Batswana with hearing impairment challenges could access training.

Mr Molosiwa said government has made efforts to reach out to Batswana with hearing impairment by ensuring that Botswana Television news and other programmes such as Tsa Temo Thuo, Talk Back and others are interpreted in sign language.

The director urged all those who had been trained to go back to their offices and become change agents by allowing the sign language effect to spread out to other colleagues, so that they could also communicate with those with hearing impairment, resulting in improved service delivery to all Batswana with or without disability.

For his part, the coordinator at the Office of People Living with Disabilities, Mr Thomas Motingwa applauded the office of the President for availing funds for the training.

  Mr Motingwa said such training would take the country a step forward.

He also appealed to the learners to take the training very seriously for the benefit of other Batswana with hearing impairment. ENDS