Turning silent withdrawal into confidence and opportunity
This year just under a million children in Uganda sat the Primary Leaving Examination to mark the end of their studies at Primary School. This chart shows the performance of students with disabilities who took the exam in the Jinja locality. Children who are deaf score the lowest grades.
Jinja is where our special needs school, St Francis de Sales (SFDS) is situated, where half the pupils have marked hearing loss. These results do not come as a surprise to the teachers who work there. Hearing loss inevitably leads to profound communication difficulties, withdrawal, loss of confidence and social marginalisation unless special services are put in place from a pre-school age. With the support our donors provide, HUGS is helping the teachers at St Francis de Sales stop the process of silent withdrawal and turn it into confidence and opportunity. If you are ever lucky enough to visit the school, you will see immediately how the children are far from marginalised; they brim with enthusiasm and demand attention.
However, we have a problem. SFDS was designed to educate ‘differently abled’ children to year 4, where after we hoped they would be able to enter mainstream primary school. Disappointingly, not a single child has been accepted into a local primary school. A mixture of prejudice and poor resources has created an insurmountable barrier to bright, capable deaf children continuing their education. Our solution is to double the side of the school and offer all 7 years of primary education. We believe, it will not be long until these children are scoring the ‘Division 1’ passed they deserve.
HUGS is proud to have Dr Emma Stapleton as a Trustee. She is a consultant ENT surgeon at Central Manchester Hospital, and an expert at restoring hearing. She is leading a project to provide audiology and basic ear care at the school in order to screen for and treat hearing loss. In partnership with experts from Greater Manchester we hope this service will grow in time.
If you would like to become involved with any part of this project in 2023 please make contact. Every contribution makes a difference, and your involvement states loudly that these children are important.