In partnership with African Bank, the Neema Foundation for the Deaf hosted the 8th Silent Walk and Run at Marks Parks Sports Club at Emmarentia, in Johannesburg, on Saturday, for Deaf Awareness Month.
Launched in 2016, the Silent Walk and Run is annually commemorated in September, where participants get to “walk a mile in the shoes” of the deaf community, by completing a 5km route.
The event spotlighted the scourge of gender-based violence (GBV) against the hearing-impaired, while heeding the hearing-community to learn Sign Language as it one of the 12 official languages.
The Joburg Municipality MMC for Health and Social Development, Ennie Makhafola, applauded Neema Foundation for sparking public conversation to enhance education and knowledge about the deaf community.
“We are thrilled and proud to promote this great understanding and respect for deaf people, and their culture and language which contributes to building a more diverse and inclusive society. The silent walk was founded in 2016 when our communities were given ear plugs to silently walk a mile in the shoes of non-hearing communities. We are thankful that you took your time to come here,” said Makhafola.
Another of the Silent Walk and Run challenges was to only speak and communicate using sign language.
Speaking to Newzroom Afrika, CEO and co-founder of the Neema Foundation for the Deaf, Fatima Cele, said the event aimed to highlight the barriers deaf people normally encountered with essential public services.
“We are very excited for the event because we are bringing awareness to the disability and understanding of the deaf community. Through our partnership with African Bank, we have been able to pilot services in different African Bank branches where the deaf community can be served in sign language, and make informed decisions when it comes to their finances.
“The deaf community experiences three times more challenges when it comes to GBV, because there is a language barrier when they want to report a case in police stations. We want to ensure their human rights and dignity is served,” said Cele.
In spite of the milestones sign language has reached, referring to the first deaf Miss SA Mia Le Roux, Priya Govender, who is a deaf interpreter from Convo South Africa, lamented there was little awareness of deaf interpreters.
As a deaf interpreter, Govender said people questioned the possibility of her line of work.
“The challenges we experience as deaf interpreters are that people are not aware there are deaf interpreters; they always think how is it possible for a deaf person to interpret,” she said.
Convo is an app developed to render and meet the communication needs of the deaf community. The app uses a third party hearing interpreter, who translates conversation through sign language from the sender (deaf person) to the receiver (hearing person), or vice versa.
Explaining how deaf interpreters interpret, Govender said: “How it works, I, as a deaf person, will have a hearing interpreter who is a feeder. That is how interpreting works.”
She further brought to light that the government continued failing to invest in the career line of deaf interpreters.
“So many government organisations do not want to pay for a deaf and hearing interpreter, which should be something we should advocate for so that there is more awareness that there are deaf interpreters.
“Since sign language is now an official language, we should involve more people being government and stakeholders in being inclusive of deaf people. Now we have Miss SA , it definitely is a stepping stone for more inclusivity (of the differently-abled),” she said.
She additionally implored the mass public to learn sign language to promote inclusivity and developing language skills.
“It is important for people to learn sign language. We must be careful of companies that teach sign language, because sign language must be taught by deaf people, not hearing people, it is a language for deaf people,” said Govender.
The Star