Education for hearing impaired young people

14 June 2007

Y Care International has been supporting Madurai YMCA’s schools for hearing impaired young people in Tamil Nadu, southern India, since 2001.

Disability in India is often viewed as a punishment for a misdeed committed in a previous life, and whole families can suffer as a result of the social stigma attached to hearing impairment. Many hearing impaired children and young people are abandoned by their families and face life being ostracised by communities and lacking access to education and training.

How we are helping

The project aims to provide opportunities for marginalised hearing impaired children and young people to receive a basic education, develop their capabilities and become integrated into their family and the rest of society.

Madurai YMCA runs a pre-school, a primary school and a high school, as well as a course for integrating 11-16 year olds with hearing difficulties into standard schools. A vocational training centre, based at the high school, provides young people who have finished their education with skills training, enabling them to participate more fully in society.

The schools, which provide basic education along with speech therapy, currently educate 95 pre-school students and 36 adolescents.

At the vocational training centre, students aged between 15 and 21 receive training in printing and book-binding, bakery, plumbing and machine embroidery. The project supports and assists them to find work placements and to secure bank loans to set up small businesses.

The YMCA also raises awareness in schools and communities and provides counselling and support to the families of hearing impaired young people.

What we hope to achieve

• Integrate hearing impaired children who develop good speech, language and the aptitude to learn in regular schools along with hearing children
• Train hearing impaired students in a marketable skill to help them find employment and become independent and productive members of society
• Build awareness among the community - particularly parents - on early identification of hearing impairment and counsel them to ward off their feelings of guilt, denial, depression and anger
• Equip parents and teachers to understand the recent trends and developments in the field of hearing impairment through regular seminars and training programmes