Parents' empowerment project
In this project, CLaSH aims to establish parents' groups in the Oshana, Oshangwena, Oshikoto, and Omusati regions of Namibia. CLaSH will raise awareness amongst parents and empower them to know and claim their cildren's right to health and education services.
Link through to the project photo gallery
Read the Learning from experience case study about this project
- Recipient:
- The Association for Children with Language, Speech and Hearing Impairments of Namibia
- Country:
- Namibia
- Implementing partner:
- VSO
- Project partners:
- Ministry of Basic Education, Sport and Culture
- Ministry of Health and Social Services
- Namibia National Association of the Deaf
- Project contact:
-
Heide Beinhauer (The Association for Children with Language, Speech and Hearing Impairments of Namibia )
- Start date:
- 01 June 2004
- End date:
- 30 September 2005
- Total budget:
- 118,100.00 NAD (�10,163.51)
- Beneficiary type:
- Parents
- Project type:
- Parents' group, Advocacy
Summary:
This project sets up three parents' groups in rural areas of the Northern region of Namibia. A specially employed and trained community facilitator will work with the parents to improve their awareness of the educational needs of deaf children and their skills in Namibian Sign Language. Deaf adults and teachers of the deaf will also be involved in the meetings.
The facilitator will then work with the parents to compare the benefits of different educational options for their children. These options are:
- the inclusion of deaf children in mainstream schools with an integrated special unit
- the establishment of a completely separate school
- a community based solution
The parents will reach a decision, and an elected parents' committee will be in charge of managing the subsequent steps assisted by the community facilitator and CLaSH.
Aim:
The central aim of this pilot project is to empower parents of deaf and hard of hearing children in the target regions to accept their child in his or her own right, increase their committment and encourage them to organise facilities to contribute to deaf children's early access to education
Beneficiaries:
In the initial phase the project will focus on Oshana region, where parent and comminities have been contacted by HARK. The project aims to contact 200 households with the main emphasis on households with a deaf child under the age of 6.
Activities:
Activity 1: Recruit and train a community facilitator and establish a project steering committee with representatives of all partners.
Expected Outcomes:
- Project resources ready.
- Lists compiled of families already identified.
Activity 2: Community facilitator will identify and visit relevant parents and families to establish individual circumstances as well as possibilities to travel and attend group meetings. The Community facilitator will work with HARK mobile unit, local CBR programmes and the NNAD Deaf clubs
Expected Outcomes:
- Households with deaf children are aware of project activities and existing support services
Activity 3: Group Meetings. These meetings will include training for parents in personal growth, identification with deaf role models, Namibian Sign Language and group creation. The community facilitator will work together with deaf adults and teachers of the deaf.
Activity 4: Discuss the feasibility of different options for Deaf education in early childhood. Groups of parents will compare the mainstreaming of hearing impaired children with an integrated special unit and a completely separate institution. Teachers from Eluwa Special School for the Deaf will contribute here.
Expected outcomes:
- Parents active at a local level to organise children's access to pre-school.
- Children's access to basic education services in rural Namibia is improved.
All activities during the pilot phase aim primarily at raising awareness amongst parents empowering them to know and claim their children's right to health and educational services. CLaSH and HARK have an established network of contacts with Government institutions and other agencies, from which the project will be able to benefit.Networking between parents groups and local governments will evolve during the course of the project based on the parents' insight and knowledge of local circumstances.
Achievements:
The first section of this project involved identifying deaf children in the target area. By mid-term, the following numbers of parents had been identified in each region:
- Ohangwena: 15 parents
- Omusati: 52 parents
- Oshikoto:8 parents
- Oshana: 32 parents
Although there are 250 families whose deaf children attend the Eluwa School for the Deaf, it was decided to focus the project on parents whose children are not accessing any form of education or support.
As the project area was very large and public transport is infrequent and expensive, it was decided to focus on one region and to offer a programme of meetings each one covering a topic of interest to parents and each one including a sign language training session.
At the beginning, it was difficult to motivate parents to attend meetings, but setting a clear focus to the meetings and offering parents accessible information on topics relevant to their needs has improved this situation. Topics covered include understanding, family communication and accessing education. The project also facilitates discussions to help parents share experiences and identify their own solutions to their problems.
More and more parents have started to attend the meetings and, there are currently 75 parents who are a member of the group.
As well as collecting money to establish a local parent-run pre-school, the parents also plan to approach the Regional Education Forum to ask for increased education opportunities for their deaf children.
