VSO and National Federation for People with Disabilities in Namibia (NFPDN) launched their EU-funded Disability Programme last week in Windhoek. The event was attended by about 70 people including representatives of the Namibian government, Organisations of People with Disabilities (OPDs) and the EU. The programme aims to build the capacity of both NFPDN and individual OPDs, as well as working with ministries, especially the Ministry of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation, to support people with disabilities to fully participate in Namibian society.
VSO staff, volunteers and local colleagues produce first ever Namibian sign language instruction video
VSO volunteer speech therapist Orna Otto, two of her deaf colleagues, Rakkel Ndilenga and Padelia Namundjebo and VSO programme staff have completed a sign language instruction video for families of deaf children.
It is the first video of its kind and represents an extremely valuable resource, since before now schools for deaf children in Namibia have had to rely on South African signing videos, even though there are significant differences between sign languages in these countries.
Hans van der Windt, our capacity-building facilitator in Namibia, describes how this unique video came about:
Together with CLaSH, Orna's employer, we took the initiative to produce a video with 400 Namibian signs. We chose a list of words consistent with stages of children's language development, known as the Makaton list.
The list starts with "mother", "father", "house", "dog", "cat" and ends with "rainbow", "crocodile" and "hyena" (we are in Africa after all!).
We built a small studio in a back garden, borrowed a camera and recorded the signs. Orna's colleagues are the sign instructors and I did the editing on a laptop.
We are grateful to the British High Commission in Windhoek who provided a grant to cover production costs.
On 29 October the High Commissioner will hand over the first copy of the video to one of the parents at the pre-school where Orna and her colleagues work. The video lasts an hour and a half and we hope that it will soon be available to view at our Learning and Information centre in Birmingham, UK.
The EC will fund a 5 year project aiming to enable people with disabilities (PWDs) living in five of the most disadvantaged regions of Namibia to participate fully in society and access basic support services.
These people are amongst the poorest in the country; disadvantaged both through the country’s huge wealth inequality and also through lack of awareness or inclusion of PWDs in everyday life. The project will achieve this through strengthening Namibia's organisations of people with disabilities (under the umbrella of the National Federation of People with Disabilities in Namibia), by building public awareness about disability with national and local campaigns and by creating platforms for PWDs to advocate on rights and opportunities.
