Current Edition : April, 2004

Reason to Hope:

Divin - Speak on

Respected Dignitaries , Parents, Teachers, Volunteers and my dear friends,

Since my old school, the E.A.R. asked me to be the mouthpiece for all deaf children, I will enumerate some of the problems we have faced as a hearing impaired person.

As a young child it was quiet frustrating for me to understand what people were saying and to be understood. We face a lot of discrimination. I was never chosen for the annual day programme although they could easily have chosen me. In school one school captain has asked me several general knowledge questions I have answered most of his questions. Though I was not chosen for the fear if I will not be able to understand and answer quickly. The house would loose (my mother made me understand, it doesn't matter you are not selected if you could answer most of the questions, you are a winner in your own rights). Most of the children don't bother to include me in their groups. No one ever invited me or they prefer to come to my place. Children use to tease me tota because my speech was not normal. At times I used to be very upset but my parent made me understand to take it lightly because the same boys helped me to understand what is going on. Once teacher was choosing leaders for a science experiment. The student with the best marks would be the leader. I was the topper but the teacher hesitated to give me the leadership role because she doubted my capacity to be a leader. With my mother's encouragement I was able to convince the teacher otherwise these social problems we know we have to face.

Many of my friends remain deaf and dumb because they can not afford to buy hearing aids. I strongly felt that hearing aids should be made available from schools of the deaf and our National Institute i.e. Ali Yavar Jung at subsidized rates. Just any hearing aid is not the answer an audiologist should prescribe right hearing aid specially for profoundly deaf children. Taxes and custom duty on hearing aid should be abolished in order to make them affordable. Digital hearing aids are Rs.80,000 for a pair.

We the deaf even if we do not talk as well as you can have a right to be educated in a hearing school when we have the capacity to learn so admission should be possible. One of the biggest hurdles is a refusal of Principal of a regular school to admit deaf children. I suggest this problem be solved by having reservation for handicapped children in normal as it is in college. I was fortunate that my parents went to a school like the E.A.R. Centre in Mumbai, which advocated integration and gave me the initial start in learning language through listening rather than sign language. This helped me to talk and to be understood.

My mother gives tuition at home, sometimes my mother would give me the responsibility of teaching another (hearing children) a maths problem or a concept. This helped me to give confidence. So I was always in the surroundings by of a hearing world. In a normal school a deaf child gets practice in adapting to a hearing world. The environment in a deaf school is artificial and is not a real world when they leave the protective environment of the school. They are unable to meet the challenges of the world outside. Recently I had met a deaf girl who had completed her S.S.C. from a school for the deaf. She didn't want to continue her study in a regular college although she was capable. I could not understand her attitude. Than I realized that people who have been educated in a special school will view the world as divided into deaf and non-deaf would prefer to stay in a world of their own. Their growth is limited (so I strongly believed that from a very young age children should be exposed to a normal world and the best way to do it is to make admission for them easy in normal school).

Watching T.V. is a big problem. I heard that in America all programmes are closed caption. It doesn't cost much more to provide this facility so if in India. If this facility is being provided then the people of India can also enjoy watching T.V. programmes.

So I strongly believe that from a very young age children should be exposed to a normal world and the best way to do it is to make admission for them easy in normal school.

With this note I am concluding my talk.