In our country, when you visit different schools of deaf children, you may realize that many Sign Languages are being used and each school has its resources. The Sign Language is not standardized. With an aim to develop a standard sign language, in 2009 the Rwanda National Union of the Deaf (RNUD) developed the Dictionary of Sign Language but it still needs to be edited and improved.
It is in this line that NCPD in collaboration with VSO and Handicap International in the project: “Inclusive Futures: establishing and applying a set of national norms and standards in inclusive education†are revising the existing dictionary to have the one which can be used by all persons with hearing and speech impairment. The project is funded by the “The Innovation for Education program, a partnership of the Government of Rwanda through the Ministry of Education and the Government of the United Kingdom, through the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and will run for two years (January 2013 to December 2014). The aim of Inclusive Futures is to identify good practice for inclusive and special needs education and test these approaches in two Districts (Kamonyi and Rubavu).
A technical working group was formed in the meeting held on Wednesday, the 17th April 2013 at Hill Top Hotel and was tasked to revise the existing dictionary on sign language and develop the curriculum to be used in teaching Sign Language. This group is composed by some persons with hearing impairment from RNUD and ANSFMR, some staff from School of children with hearing impairment, NCPD, HI and some volunteers from VSO.
It is within this framework that members of the working group met in two sessions held at Centre Saint François d’Assise/Kicukiro from 13 to 17 May 2013 and from 27 to 31 May 2013 to perform the assigned task. During the two weeks, each word of the existing dictionary was checked to see if the sign matches with the given word and verify if its translation in English is correct. Mistakes found have been listed and corrected after the checking of the whole dictionary and they proposed another word which can be added. It was proposed that the dictionary would be arranged by themes instead of being arranged alphabetically as it used to be. The curriculum to be used in teaching Sign Language was developed basing on the curriculum of teaching English in Primary Schools in Rwanda.
Reported by:
Nyirabugenimana Sylvie
Disability Friendly Communication Officer/NCPD