REACHING THE DEAF COMMUNITY

September is the International Month for Deaf People, and we were privileged to have the opportunity to visit Ngala Secondary School, a School for the Deaf in Nakuru, Kenya.

Teachers’ Training

We arrived and immediately went into the Reach4Life training with the teachers. We met 13 teachers who would be taking the students through the resource; therefore, it was crucial for them to understand what it entailed.

Some of the teachers were deaf, and so we had a sign language interpreter to train them with us. This meant that the training session was slower than usual. Upon encountering this great need, it is our hope that in future we will be able to train more sign language interpreters, so that we can reach the youth in the deaf community, more effectively.

Never-the-less we had a fruitful training with follow up questions and discussions at the end. The teachers were impressed and felt very equipped to tackle most of the issues some of their students go through.

Some youth from the Bridge Ministries who joined the training expressed how grateful they were for the resources. They found Reach4life very relevant to the students.

Meeting the students

We later joined the students who were eagerly waiting for us in the hall. The school has almost 200 deaf students, both boys and girls.

We found them singing when we got there. It was the first time for some of us to experience a sign language praise session. It felt odd but so humbling at the same time. Making one appreciate things that we rarely recognise as gifts, like speaking and being heard.

We noticed how attentively they followed not to miss any sign from the interpreter. Since they listen through observation. Missing a sign would mean they do not understand whatever is being communicated.

We had a very interactive session during which we all got sign names. We concluded the training with a photo session that took longer than usual as the students could not contain their excitement.

We thank God for the opportunity to be a blessing to them.