Windhoek
Seventeen-year-old Uetuesapi Kamutuezu was born deaf. However, nothing in her persona says that about her disability. She was all smiles when she walked in for our interview and had we not known about her condition prior to the arranged interview, it would have been difficult to link her in any way to being deaf.
The teenager, who is a Grade 9 learner at the School for the Hearing Impaired, is free-spirited and even when sharing her story in sign language it is obvious that she has accepted who she is, or at least so it appears.
Despite Namibia being independent for 26 years now, people like Kamutuezu are often discriminated against based on their disabilities, perhaps due to a lack of knowledge or lack of acceptance by the general population.
However, apart from a school for the deaf, little has been done to integrate facilities for them in public spaces beyond the school to address their needs.
In most cases parents of children with hearing impairments also do not understand their limitations while others are supportive.
“I don’t have any problems, my parents treat me well. But I hardly have people to associate with other than my immediate family because my aunt is scared that bad things can happen to me and so she tries to keep me close to home,” said Kamutuezu, who shared her story on the difficulties of being deaf through an interpreter.
“I believe it’s important to support people living with disabilities because there are things that we are limited to due to our disability,” said Kamutuezu.
Also sharing on the challenges of being deaf, Kamutuezu’s schoolmate, McClinton Modise said: “We have a lot of challenges. For example, if I’m going to Gobabis, it is difficult to communicate on the road because there is nobody to interpret things for me from sign language. As a result, I use my phone to communicate with the people.”
It is equally difficult to access health care services because the health personnel are not trained to deal with people with hearing impairments, adds Modise, a Grade 10 learner.
“When I am sick it is difficult to communicate with the doctors because they don’t know sign language. Even if I try to show them what I am suffering from through signing they end up giving the wrong medicine and the problem is not solved. What will happen to me in future if this situation persists?” queried Modise.
In addition, Modise said: “I will be in Grade 12 soon and I want to go to university but it will be a problem because there are no tailor-made facilities for our needs. I will have to look for someone to interpret for me and then I have to pay them,” he says.
Meanwhile, Linekela Paul Nanyeni, a teacher at the School for Hearing Impaired, says many deaf children end up staying at home and in the long run do not benefit from education early on in life.
“We need to see deaf education from a special education context … in that way we can produce good results in education at the level it best fits,” he says.
Deaf schools are seen as special institutions that in nature cater for learners with special education needs, he says. But in reality this is not the case, adds Nanyeni, who is partially deaf.
“There is very little to be proud of in deaf education over the past 26 years, as deaf learners have failed Grade 10 and are unable to find work after that,” added Nanyeni.
Education is needed in order to make a living after the school years, he says. However, in the case of deaf learners, many of them end up staying at home, at the village or on farms and subsequently forget sign language, added Nanyeni.
There is a need to reform deaf education in order for it to be responsive to the needs of deaf learners, says Nanyeni.
“We have vocational training centres around the country that cater for the majority of the youth. There is nothing for the deaf youth to do after Grade 10 or Grade 12 if they have not attained better marks to proceed to Grade 11 or university. A radical shift should answer to the needs of the deaf youth by establishing vocational centres that will cater for their training needs,” he adds.