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Breaking down barriers in Uganda

Published Date: 08 Dec 2017

Parenting deaf children is influenced by many things including culture, poverty, lack of awareness and barriers to communication.

In Uganda many deaf children and their families are stigmatised by their communities because deafness is not understood – some believe deafness is a curse. Also many parents are unaware of the services available and don’t realise that with the right support, their deaf child could achieve the same as a hearing child.

For all these reasons, many of the 78,000 deaf children in Uganda fail to receive the support they need and never go to school. Parents are the most important influence when it comes to getting deaf children what they need. A parent’s belief in their deaf child is crucial and can mean the difference between a child attending school or missing out on education altogether.

So we’ve teamed up with our newest partner in Uganda, the National Association of Parents of Deaf Children (NAPADEC) to help break down these barriers. NAPADEC supports families in six districts, by providing training to improve communication, such as teaching sign language, and establishing local and national parent support groups to provide ongoing support for deaf children and their families, now and for future generations.

NAPADEC is working to eliminate misconceptions about deafness by helping parents support one another, in order to help create stable home environments for deaf children.