Scarcity of interpreters impede social integration of deaf in Cameroon

DOUALA, Cameroon

It is difficult to identify the hearing-impaired children from their other schoolmates when they are playing in the courtyard of the Rehabilitation Centre for Deaf Children (CRES), located in the city of Douala in Cameroon.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency on eve of the International Sign Language Day, Robert Nyat director of the CRES said they have mixed hearing-impaired children with normal children to allow them to play and communicate.

"They all learn sign language and can live and communicate together. Bringing all these children together has been an opportunity to open up to the world. It has broken the rejection and distance between them and the normal-hearing children," he said.

Nyat said it was necessary to raise disabled children together with other children to facilitate their integration into society.

“Here every one learns sign language. There are about 150 hearing-impaired students in the school,” he said.

But he lamented that there are just five Sign language teachers.

According to the Cameroonian Organization for the Development of the Deaf (OCDS), there are just 10 interpreters for about 30,000 deaf people in the country.

"The training of specialized teachers is expensive in Cameroon. This is why many people are not interested in it. The government has not given enough consideration to setting up institutes for these hearing-impaired people and specialized teachers," said Nyat.

He said his organization has tried to work with several organizations to popularize the Sign language.

“But we have found that many people do not consider the language as a tool of communication. So, they are not motivated to find solutions," he said.

Teaching sign language to parents

He said children who return to homes after attending school do not find people who know Sign language.

“They see things but they don't know how to explain them and nobody is willing to give them explanations because people don't talk in sign language because they didn't learn it in school,” said Nyat.

Claudette Mvilogo, president of an association of deaf also said that the lack of interpreters was a major concern in the country.

The CRES in Douala has started a program to teach Sign language to parents as well to allow them to communicate with their children.

Ordinary people are also trained without certification just to make up for the lack of teachers.

"The authorities must realize that there is a very large deaf population that needs to go to school. From then on, they will have to introduce the existing special education modules in all training schools and also in the national teacher training schools. This is so that any educator can educate deaf people," Nyat added.

He demanded that Sign language should be integrated into the education system, to allow people and more so

For him, even a doctor should be able to hold a conversation with a deaf or dumb patient.

For this "sign language should be integrated at all levels of education," he insisted.