Parents, teachers and young people working together for children's rights in Kazakhstan
- Country:
- Kazakstan
- Organisations involved:
Centre SATR, VSO, IDCS
- Synopsis:
-
Kazakhstan has the highest number of disabled young people institutionalised in Central Asia - approximately 17,000 young people, 6,000 of whom are deaf. There is a lot of stigma around disability and deafness which is why it is seen as perfectly acceptable to place a child in an institution. This is however the only way many deaf young people receive any education. Children in these institutions are often mistreated - physical punishments such as smacking and sometimes more serious physical and sexual abuse. Most the teachers in the Internats (residential institutions) do not know how to sign - Sign Language is used almost exclusively by the deaf community. Children tend to be left alone, signing in their own secret language. Children also face a lot of bullying by older or bolder children in their dormitories. Adults find it difficult to intervene because they don’t understand what’s going on.
The SATR project was called 'Rights for All'. Using the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, it looked at the whole range of children's rights, . Each week the project focused on a different right, using different creative methods for working with children, parents and teachers.
Art was a key way to help children think about their rights
In particular, the project looked at young people’s rights to be in a family and to be able to communicate with family members. We set up parents’ groups to encourage parents to become involved in their children’s lives and act on behalf of their children in their respective residential schools.
Deaf children find it difficult to communicate with their parents or tell their parents about their experiences at school. If parents do complain, they fear that their children may be thrown out of the schools or that they would no longer have contact with their children. Psychologists sometimes advise the school that parents are ‘upsetting their child’s education’ and prevent parents from having contact with their children without even going to court! Professionals are very powerful and parents tend to do what they are told. The project therefore engaged with school staff as well as parents.
As part of the project, we worked with parents’ groups in two Internats for deaf children. Young people are separated according to their level of hearing – one school was for hearing impaired young people and one for profoundly deaf young people. We chose a class of 12 young people in each Internat. First, we worked with children aged five to eight and then with a group of nine to 14 year old children. We then worked with the parents of these two groups of children. We also worked with their teachers.
Some parents found it difficult to attend because of other family commitments and the lack of money. Some parents lived one or two hours away from the school. The extreme temperatures (-30c in winter and +40c in summer) also made it difficult to organise family meetings.
The parents’ groups are still going on and are attached to the schools. Two parent representatives attend quarterly meetings with the school directors. A resource room has been set up in one of the Internats so that parents can access information when they visit the school. A parent volunteer works in the information resource room.
We wanted the parents’ group to lobby local government. This is happening in the rural region, but in Almaty City the government has refused to engage directly with parents. Instead they engage with the Kazakhstan Deaf Association (KDA) who in turn work with the parents’ group. Now children are becoming more involved in the KDA which didn’t happen previously.Parents have been much more vocal lately about the need for Sign Language and that still going on. One school is reviewing its policy around Sign Language. It is a huge change of attitude that schools have even started thinking about Sign Language.
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