Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia
Persons With Disabilities (PWDs), have advocated the inclusion of sign language interpretation in school curriculum.
They also called for the engagement of sign language interpreters in hospitals to help attend to PWDs.
PWDs made the advocacy when two of their members, Chidimma Ajemba, and Ugochukwu Okeke, featured on Ikengaonline monthly virtual townhall meeting held Thursday night.
Comrade Okeke is the Chairman of the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPWD), Anambra State chapter; while Ajemba is an accomplished journalist, public relations executive, and communications strategist.
The duo spoke on the theme: “Access and political participation of PWDs in the South-East.”
According to them, inclusion of sign language in school curriculum will enable their members get more efficient service in society especially in hospitals and other public places.
Okeke who said they had commenced the advocacy in Anambra State, argued that inclusion of sign language in school curriculum would make things lot more easy for PWDs in society.
He said: “I believe that once this is done, it will go a long way in addressing the challenges of PWDs in society.”
Similarly, Ajemba said: “Making sign language part of curriculum will go a long way in making things easy for us.”
She also advocated regular capacity building for workers on how to deliver more efficient service to PWDs.
Contributing, one of the participants on the programme that was also broadcast live on Omalicha FM Radio Owerri, Mr Philip Vincent, suggested that sign language skill be made compulsory for all teachers and hospital workers.
He argued that the same way computer literacy was made compulsory and a condition for recruitment into certain categories of public service, Government should make sign language knowledge compulsory for certain categories of public servants so as not to deny PWDs the quality attention they need from such workers.
He said: “The same way Government makes computer literacy compulsory for civil servants and even provides them with incentives and computer sets to acquire the knowledge, it should make sign language compulsory for those who work in hospitals and for teachers in schools including civil servants.”
According to him, for public servants to effectively communicate with, and satisfactorily attend to persons with speech and hearing impairments, they need to acquire sign language skill.
Mr Vincent who condemned Government’s lack of interest in the welfare of PWDs, called for more commitment to the issues affecting PWDs to give them a sense of belonging.
He also faulted the idea of using technology to replace sign language interpreters in hospitals, arguing that some of the PWDs may be illiterates that may not understand English language often used by such technologies.
Ajemba had earlier said that a development partner had assisted in training sign language interpreters in Anambra State but the State Government complained that it could not possibly employ them due to paucity of funds.
She, therefore, suggested the use of technology in bridging the gap as done in developed societies.
She said: “If Government cannot employ sign language interpreters in hospitals, why not purchase gadgets and the kind of technology in some countries that write on the screen for PWDs in hospitals? The problem here is that matters of PWDs are always an afterthought.”
The 90 minutes townhall meeting was anchored by a veteran Journalist and Author, Dr Chido Onumah.
Ikengaonline townhall meeting is part of the Collaborative Media Engagement (C-Media) for Development Inclusivity and Accountability Project, a multi-level intervention for media independence and government accountability, managed by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) and supported by the MacArthur Foundation.
