A parents empowerment project in Namibia
- Country:
- Namibia
- Organisations involved:
The Association for Children with Language, Speech and Hearing Impairments (CLaSH)
- Synopsis:
The Association for Children with Language, Speech and Hearing Impairments of Namibia (CLaSH), received one year SGP grant to reach out to parents in a rural area of northern Namibia. The majority of these parents faced numerous challenges in their daily lives, they lived far away from each other, they lacked even the most basic information about hearing loss and many were not immediately convinced of the need for a group.
Read the full details of the SGP project by linking to the SGP section
One of the main costs to CLaSH in running this project was to recruit and hire a “Community Facilitator” who took on the role of identifying families and facilitating meetings. Identifying parents who would benefit from the project in such a sparsely populated rural area, without public transport and telecommunications systems was a challenge, even with a dedicated staff member.A number of methods proved successful:
- Making use of the links between CLaSH and the mobile audiology unit, HARK. This is a Sound Seekers project, see the Resources section for more information.
- Linking with other individuals who are responsible for identifying deaf children such as the HARK nurses, Medical Rehabilitation Workers, Regional School Counsellors and the VSO Namibia Disability Programme.
- Using the radio to announce the meetings. This included calling already identified parents by name and making general appeals for parents of deaf children to attend.
- Asking parents to refer other parents to the group (as the project went on the number of parents attending meetings increased).
Where possible the project staff linked with the mobile audiology unit to test the hearing of newly identified children. Each time a new family was identified, the project gathered background information about their deafness and whether they were at school. In a few cases, the community facilitator made visits at home to encourage families to attend parents’ meetings and to collect information, but the distances to travel unfortunately made such home visits unsustainably costly and difficult.
Starting the group
It was essential that group meetings were well-organised and that there were practical benefits for those parents that attended in the early days. In addition, snacks and transport refunds were provided to motivate families to attend.In early meetings, the discussion focused on the multiple needs of families involved in the group. Family members looked to the project staff for solutions. It became clear that many “parents” were in fact grandparents, where the parent of the child was living elsewhere. The difficulty of travelling, the need for educational opportunities and the general poverty of the families were common topics of discussion. A primary concern for families was that their deaf children would grow up to lead independent lives.
Meetings were called using the radio and were held every 2 weeks on a Saturday. Initially the parents were facilitated to attend by being provided with
In the early stages, having a clear focus for the meetings and giving the parents strong reasons to attend was vital. Previous attempts to encourage parents of deaf children in school to meet and to learn Sign Language had been largely unsuccessful because of low attendance. The refund of transport costs, provision of snacks and sign language learning resources along with the clear focus to the meetings made the meetings more attractive to parents and a core group continued to attend regularly. The community facilitator and other invited speakers gave information about the causes of deafness, traditional beliefs, available educational opportunities and the lives of deaf adults. The right of all children to education. As all families expressed a need to learn about communicating with their child, each meeting also contained some Sign Language training on relevant topics to parents such as family and greetings, domestic animals / food and drink, emotional and religious words, verbs and colours. Namibian Sign Language materials were distributed to all the parents.
Each meeting began with discussion time to review what had happened since the previous meeting. This gave all the participants the opportunity to talk about what they had learnt and how they had used this with their children and what else they could do.
“Parents gave an account of what they learnt in the previous meeting and what they taught their children in terms of sign language. Parents exchanged views on different methods used to communicate with children, including gestures, facial expressions, body language etc. Parents said that it was now becoming easier to communicate with their children than before” Extract from minutes.
Parents meeting in Eenhana
By the end of the project, staff had collected the names and contact details of around 200 parents whose profoundly deaf children age 5-17 were not accessing school.
When these parents attended group meetings, they were able to get involved in specific actions. The groups became a focus point for parents to take action, these actions included:- Learning about deafness and developing communication skills
- Carry out local-level advocacy about the lack of educational opportunities
- Setting up a pre school for deaf children in a previously unserved area
Building ownership of the group
The project aimed to support the parents themselves to feel ownership of the group. A number of strategies were used to try and build ownership. Each meeting allowed time for the following activities:- Discussion and peer support on sign language learning and family communication
- Discussion and agreement on purpose of the group and action planning for the way forward
- Appointment of office bearers and representatives to carry out specific tasks
- Evaluation and feedback on the contents of the meeting
- The date of the next meeting
Decisions were made by the parents about reducing provision of drinks and snacks for meetings by the organisation. The need for members to make a small contribution to the cost of meeting was agreed as a group. Those who really struggled to pay were able to make reduced contributions. Parents themselves took the lead in making sure fair contributions were paid.
In May 2005: “A resolution was passed that we can meet by ourselves to discuss issues even if the community facilitator is not there”
Starting the preschool for deaf children, Eenhana, Namibia
Access to educational opportunities for their children was the families priority.The group requested a plot from the Town Council of Eenhana and were provided with a suitable area of land where they could construct a preschool.
The community facilitator helped to identify a deaf teacher and as CLaSH had run the first pre school unit in Namibia since 1984, they were able to offer some training to the teacher.
Among themselves the group collected around £200 towards the construction of a preschool classroom and requested CLaSH to assist them with additional funding, teaching materials and further training to sustain their work.
In 2006, the Eenhana parents group constructed a one-room zinc house (a simple structure made from corrugated iron sheets) and Tresia, the deaf teacher has started to teach some 14 deaf children with the assistance of two mothers, who took on the role of "hostel matrons".
The preschool in action
Not all the out of school children identified through the project attend the pre-school and the group continues to develop their own skills to support their children and to continue their advocacy efforts. Towards the end of the IDCS project, representatives of the parents group presented a list of around 200 deaf children who were not receiving specialist support in school to the regional educational authorities as part of their request for access to suitable educational opportunities.
Brighten, a dedicated teacher from Eluwa School for the Deaf (120 km away from Eenhana), has continued to support the group as a volunteer project coordinator and his commitment has helped teachers and parents to stay motivated and interested. The parents’ struggle for their children’s right to education continue.- Recommendations:
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- The project area was very large and public transport is infrequent and expensive. This made it very difficult for families to attend the meetings. Refunding transport costs in the early stages of the project was essential to ensure that families could attend.
- Family communication was parents' first priority and Namibian Sign Language training was included as part of all the meetings.
- Progressively reducing the contribution made by CLaSH helped to build parents' ownership of the group.
- Empowering parents takes time! Further support from the volunteer teacher at Eluwa school and financing from CLaSH was needed after the 1-year IDCS Small Grant was complete.
Children create a play village at the preschool
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