Improving The Welfare Of The Deaf By Meeting Their Critical Needs: A Case Of The City Of Bulawayo In Zimbabwe.

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue IV, April 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186

Improving The Welfare Of The Deaf By Meeting Their Critical Needs: A Case Of The City Of Bulawayo In Zimbabwe.

Lulama Tshuma
Adventist University of Africa

Abstract
It is a general trend in cities that deaf people roam the streets in cities. While governments, charity organizations and churches have sought to provide them with shelter, food handouts, and education in special schools they still remain without permanent shelter and work. They also suffer marginalization and exclusion from the mainstream hearing community. Current literature and studies only confirm the status of these, but they have not provided a solution. It is the objective of this study to investigate the critical needs of the deaf people in the city of Bulawayo so that they are appropriately capacitated to manage their lives. Data were collected using structured questionnaires and in-depth face-to-face interviews. The participants in the study revealed that the community and society at large do not understand the deaf culture because there is no interactive language. They highlighted that it is the inability of the mainstream hearing society to interact with deaf people which results in their social exclusion. The analysis of the questionnaires and interviews shows how significant it is for deaf people to be integrated to the hearing world by exposing hearing people to SL and involving them in community projects for the deaf.

Keywords: participatory needs assessment, deaf, communication barriers, connection, capacity building and empowerment, Sign Language (SL), capacitate, deaf, Hearing impairment.

Background

Despite a concerted effort by churches, the government and welfare organisations to improve the livelihood of the deaf people in Zimbabwe particularly in Bulawayo they remain one of the most needy people groups. Marginalization, communication barrier, poor academic performance and compromised livelihood are global challenges to the deaf community. Brueggemann, (2004); Wauters, van Bon, & Tellings, (2006) among many other writers seem to testify that universally most deaf high school leavers barely manage to achieve a fourth-grade reading level. Zimbabwe also faces these global challenges among its deaf people. The early missionaries dealt with the challenges of the deaf by establishing special schools to which these children would stay there while studying. These schools are Henry Murray in Masvingo and Emerald Hill in Harare were the first school of the deaf that were established in 1947. Later the Jairos Jiri association in 1968 established Naran. Munhuweyi, P. and Barchan, L. (1998) observed that in Zimbabwe, the teaching deaf children was considered more of a

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