Botswana Society For The Deaf Gives A Voice To The Deaf And Mute

By Chedza Mmolawa

More often than not, society overlooks the needs, support, and care of the deaf community. This is especially prevalent in Botswana.

It was not until 1978, when Dr. Ian Kennedy initiated the first Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) Clinic in Bamalete Lutheran Hospital in Ramotswa through funds from Christoffel Blinden Mission (CBM) in Germany, that the deaf community started gaining a voice.

He recognized a need for the deaf population to be educated and included in societal development.

Subsequently, this led Mr. Ronald Stanley Fish to found the Ramotswa Society for the Deaf (RSD), which was formed and initiated as the first unit for the Deaf in Ramotswa.

The second school was in Francistown, called Francistown Centre for the Deaf. This was built on a need to establish a coordinating center that resulted in forming the Botswana Society for the Deaf (BSD), which governs both sites of Ramotswa and Francistown.

Botswana Society for the Deaf is a Non-Governmental organization aimed at advocating for the needs and welfare of the Deaf community in Botswana. BSD owns and oversees Ramotswa and Francistown Center for Deaf Education which are the first two primary Schools in Botswana for the Deaf. By 2013 the student enrolment in the two schools in Francistown and Ramotswa stood at 250 for Pre and Primary intake, 70 teaching staff, and 75 auxiliary staff. BSD also accredited Sign Language Training Program level 3 with BQA.

The Public Relations Officer at BSD, Carol Kgomotso, opened up about the milestones and challenges the organization has faced over the years. She highlight-

ed that despite the expected adversities, the society is determined to make progressive change and ultimately establish what the founder set out to achieve.

“It’s our greatest objective to be a Botswana where the rights of the Deaf and hard of hearing are fully met. To achieve this, we promote the rights, needs, and welfare of the Deaf population and their families through advocacy, education, care and support, and community mobilization,” she explained.

Kgomotso added that the Botswana Society for the Deaf maintains a strong track record in deaf advocacy and empowerment, which can be seen through the work carried out by BSD’s two centers, Ramotswa & Francistown Center for Deaf Education. Through these two centers, deaf pupils receive pre-primary and primary education; the two centers are overseen by BSD in collaboration with the Botswana Government and the Ministry of Basic Education.

BSD has also been at the forefront of easing the communication barrier between the deaf and mainstream society through offering interpretation services. It is through these services that deaf individuals within the country are now fully aware that if they need an interpreter wherever they may need to seek services, BSD will assist.

BSD FOOTPRINT IN BOTSWANA The BSD is committed to working more efficiently with the Government of Botswana, its sponsors, and donors to help advance its Deaf Advocacy Agenda of being a Botswana that works towards ratifying the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CPRD). The organization intends to achieve this through its outreach expansion and engagement plan that will target Batswana, employers, tuition providers, and policy/law makers.

And as a result of the efforts made by the organisation in 2020, 4000 people were reached using the Deaf Awareness Campaign. Through BSD’s efforts over the past few years, students were enrolled at reputable institutions; for example, two students enrolled abroad at Gallaudet University in Washington DC, USA, in 2019. Locally 61 students were enrolled at GIPS for ICT Certificate, and one student was enrolled at Botho University for a degree program during the years 2018, 2019, and 2020 respectively.

The organisation’s collaboration with BITRI has enabled them to facilitate the development of the Sign Coach App which will on a high scale improve communication, and broaden recognition and inclusivity of the Deaf community socio-economically, and technologically. The BITRI license is in its last stages of issuance to BSD.

Furthermore, BSD facilitated 91 jobs (37 male: 54 female) for the Deaf in 18 retail stores throughout Botswana. In the last few years, BSD also worked on addressing Deaf socio bottlenecks. For example, a BSD/Botswana Accountancy College App is under development to ensure accessibility of Social communication from toll-free numbers by the Deaf in cases of emergency. In addition, BSD has facilitated the marriages of 3 Deaf couples

and continues to work with the Attorney General on court case representations for the Deaf. Improving the limitation of the Deaf Youth to access economic funding will be among the areas of intervention within their next chapter.

In addition to this, sign language training will be provided online, and BSD level 5 BQA Accreditation is at its final stage and is currently being piloted. And the Sign Language Digital Dictionary is complete and will be accessed online. Finally the digital dictionary also will be launched shortly.

CHALLENGES AND OVERCOMING THEM Kgomotso highlighted that like many organizations worldwide, Covid-19 did not spare BSD. The pandemic had devastating socio-economic impacts that have affected the Deaf. In 2020, BSD revised its constitution which was adopted at a Special AGM on the 20th of May 2020. Botswana was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in the loss of lives of the BSD beneficiaries who were affected. Other socio-economic issues such as Gender Based Violence (GBV) and depression led to suicide by some of the members from the circumstances related to Covid-19. Some of the members of the Deaf community lost jobs, especially those working in the retail industry. Furthermore, government subventions were frozen, all of these affected the Deaf community. BSD and the Ministry of Health partnered to do a Covid-19 pandemic assessment of the Deaf community, which provided recommendations for future programming responses to Covid-19 for the Deaf. She also added that sex education has become very important for the deaf community as they have shown a keen interest in marriage and being sexually active. It is thus imperative for the organization to develop sex education for the population to be able to take better care of themselves and their loved ones. They are taught about STDs, Pregnancy Prevention, Prep, and Protection.