Joseph
Joseph
BuwhejuUganda
About me
Ayebazibwe Joseph was born deaf, the fifth of seven children to George and his wife in the remote mountain village of Buhinda, in Buwheju County, Bushenyi District, Uganda.
My Story
The other children went to the village school but Joseph stayed at home until, when he was 12 years old, Butare School opened a unit for the Deaf, with a teacher trained using funding from ICDS, now Deaf Child Worldwide. George took Joseph along to the school but because of his age the Headteacher suggested he took Joseph to Ishekye School in Sheema county where the unit had been opened longer and the school was experienced in working with Deaf children. It was suggested that Joseph should be checked out by doctors and after visits to doctors, clinics and hospitals it was confirmed that he was deaf due to a physical problem within his ears.
So Joseph started attending Primary 5 as a boarder at Ishekye School. This school is at least four hours from his home and there is very little transport available so his father takes him at the beginning of term and does not see him again until the end of term. Joseph first attracted my attention when I saw his father, George, at a Parents Group meeting and asked “how is your son?” George replied “I don’t know”.
The students in P5 and above attend the normal classes and pick what they can from the blackboard and the text books. Joseph is doing very well in classes and in his exams and is now in P6. However he has never really mastered sign language because he started school so late and as a consequence he seems fairly isolated. He can communicate to a certain extent with others using gestures rather than sign language.
During discussions with his teacher and headteacher it was suggested that he really needed a year in a sign language class but his parents had been keen that he should progress with his lessons rather than spend a year learning to sign. This led us to wonder if the school should have a rule about a minimum standard of sign language before pupils can enter P5. It will be difficult for Joseph to continue to secondary school under our proposed project as he will not be able to communicate with the interpreter employed to help with their subjects. We fear that he will continue to be quite isolated despite his obvious intelligence.
Joseph illustrates how important it is for Deaf children to learn to communicate well in sign language. Even if they are extremely intelligent and can learn from text books, relying only on gestures will make life more and more difficult as they grow up as they will be limited in the ideas, thoughts and feelings that they can express.
We were able to talk to Joseph when we visited Ishekye School and report to his father the next day at Butare Parents Group meeting. George was very pleased and emotional to see the photos of his son.
