Provincial senior manager of the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) in the Eastern Cape, Xolisa Tshongolo, said they had hosted a workshop at Efata School for the blind and deaf in Mthatha, recently.
He said that the aim of this two-day workshop was to educate parents on how to use sign language, so that they can communicate with their deaf children.
Tshongolo said they were there to improve the relationship between parents and their children, by making it easier to communicate with each other.
He said they had realised that while these children had parents who are able to speak and hear, there is a challenge to communicate.
“These children end up being sent to schools, and choose to stay there rather than going back home during holidays, because there is nobody who will be able to talk with them.
“These children use sign language, while their parents know nothing about it, and that is where the problem starts.
“It is even hard for them to communicate with the community, so they end up choosing [to stay at] schools rather than being at home because school is where they have friends who understand them,” said Tshongolo.
He added that by doing this workshop they were trying to intervene, so that there can be an understanding between both parties.
Tshongolo said that there are many challenges facing these children, and they may become victims of crime because they cannot communicate with anyone if something bad happens to them.
He said that when they grow they also go through some stages like other children, and at each stage parents have to educate them, and what they should expect.
“Even when the child is still young it is hard for the parent to discipline them, so that he/she can grow up knowing to differentiate between wrong and right. They end up thinking that their parents do not love them due to the problem of lack of communication.”
According to him, even in these special schools they have the challenge of teachers not being equipped with sign language, yet they are employed to teach. He claims that they (teachers) cannot use sign language, but at the end of the day government expects these children to pass.
He said that these schools belong to the Department of Education, but the duty of PanSALB is to advise when necessary and assist where they can, but they ended up doing these workshops as if they are the Department of Education.
“For instance, we are here to equip parents. This was supposed to be done by the Department of Education, but we see that maybe they are too busy to do these trainings, so we decided to do it by ourselves.”
Member of Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB), and representing deaf in communities, Ntombi Skhuza, said that one of the challenges facing people who are deaf is communication.
She said that it is hard even when they are visiting offices of the departments, because no-one understands them. Skhuza said that they cannot even get jobs because of the language barrier.
“Most of the time they do not get help and their needs are not attended to due to a lack of communication. In order for them to get help they are forced to have interpreters. We are here because we want to train parents so that it can be easy for them to communicate with their children,” said Skhuza.
She said they also face challenges when some are raped, and find the case is not going anywhere because the victim cannot report the matter to the police or parents, due to this communication challenge.
One of the parents who attended this workshop, Wendy Mcengwa (54), said that it will help her because it was hard for her to communicate with her two children.
“The older one is in Johannesburg; what I have learnt will make things easier now to communicate with the one that I am living with at home. I appeal to other parents to ensure that they attend these workshops, because they are helping us a lot. Let us try to learn this sign language because our children end up being victims of different crimes. They have no-one who understands them because of their situation,” said Mcengwa.
Another parent, Nelson Mhlabeni (62), said that what they had learnt will make a big difference because it was hard to communicate with their children.
“I am too old to learn, but I told myself that I will do this for the sake of my child. It was not easy but it will make a change,” said Mhlabeni.
