Dear friends,
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| Our children, with one extra child who could not be left out at the far left. From left at the back: Paul, Aluma, John and Alau. In front: Alice, Lillian and Assumpta |
I have just returned from taking two new
children to the hearing impairment unit in Budaderi, near Mbale. Their names are Lillian and Paul. Both are 13 years old and were attending Cece
Primary School previously. Both are
profoundly deaf with no speech, due to meningitis.
Paul lost his hearing through meningitis
at the age of 5. His first experience of
school was last year at the age of 12.
At first he was making good progress, so there seemed no reason to
uproot him. However, this year he is
struggling in the next class up. Paul
enjoys football very much. Paul’s father
is old, suffers from leprosy and is unable to work, so Paul and his siblings
spend their time out of school polishing shoes for a living.
Lillian joined our school this year but
has been making no progress, clearly due to a complete lack of
communication. She comes to life at
break-time, when she joins in with the skipping games. Her father is dead and her mother has serious
mental problems, so she is cared for by another of the father’s wives (polygamy
is the norm here). The family were
displaced by serious fighting in their area in 2016 and fled to one of the
refugee camps. It was there that Lillian
contracted meningitis. She was very
close to death for some time. Once she
had started to recover, the family decided that they would be far better off
leaving the refugee camp and moving to Nimule.
Both families are delighted that their
children now have a chance of learning sign language and gaining a good
education at a special school for deaf children. This is something which would not be possible
in South Sudan.
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| Assumpta and Lillian |
The children have very different
characters. On our long journey to
Budaderi, we stayed in a hotel overnight.
Lillian, in spite of her lack of speech was visibly excited at the
prospect of sleeping in a real bed, rather than on a mat on the floor. She leapt onto the bed as soon as we entered
the room with a large grin on her face. Paul
gave the impression that everything was quite normal, which I am sure it was
not. Once we arrived, I bought all their
school requirements, such as mattresses, bedding, a metal box to keep their
belongings, school shoes, toiletries etc.
Lillian’s eyes were on stalks.
Paul kept his man-of-the-world pose to perfection.
For their first night at school, they
went to their respective dormitories.
Paul met Aluma. Lillian met
Assumpta and Alice. Assumpta and Lillian
have immediately made friends, as can be seen from the photo. Paul, I
think, is still assessing the situation, but seems quite happy in his calm
way. Next week term will start, but they
are both already picking up some Ugandan Sign Language from the other children
and staff at the school.
During the school holidays Alau, who is
at a secondary school for the deaf joins the younger children as his school
closes completely for the holidays. This
time, he came with another South Sudanese boy called John, who is sponsored by
a friend of mine. John is attending the
technical school attached to the secondary school, because his educational
level is not high enough for the academic curriculum, due to attending a normal
primary school in South Sudan, where he struggled due to his deafness. He is now learning sign language for the first
time at 17 years old and is picking it up remarkably quickly.
The secondary school has a new policy
that all their pupils have to have medical tests for Hepatitis B, TB, typhoid,
malaria and STDs. They also have to have
dental checks and ear tests. I took them
to the hospital in Mbale and we spent a very long day going around the various departments.
When John’s ears were checked, he was
found to have a severe infection in both ears.
His ears were cleaned and he was prescribed antibiotics. He immediately started to hear in one
ear! It seems that there are holes in
both ear drums, but one is worse than the other. The doctor said that the ear with less damage
may heal completely. As his ears are
still not completely right, the doctor is delaying testing his hearing. I wait with bated breath! As soon as he started hearing, John started
making experimental noises, but is still unable to control the type of sounds
coming out of his mouth. If he ever had
any language, he has long since forgotten it.
When I informed the headteacher, she said that they will be able to help
him learn to speak.
In Alau’s case he was found to have a
very small amount of hearing, and ‘may benefit from hearing aids’ according to
the report. I told the headteacher this
news too. She said that they are
expecting a hearing aid assessment at the school this July. Next time I see these boys, maybe they will
both be hearing and speaking. What a
fantastic school!
As Paul and Lillian had never had formal
hearing checks they were also tested, but have turned out to be completely
deaf, which means that hearing aids will not help them.
Alau, Assumpta, Alice and Aluma continue
to do well. Seeing how John’s
educational choices have been limited by the lack of specialist primary
education in South Sudan, brings it home to me just how important it is that
these children get the chance to learn in an environment where they can
communicate. Thank you so much to those
who have sponsored them.
Please can I ask for sponsors for Paul, Lillian,
Alau, Aluma and Alice? I struggled to
pay for all their requirements. This was
because originally I had expected Paul and Lillian to remain in Nimule for this
year at least. It was the lack of
progress that caused me to bring things forward. I did not want them to be bored to death in
the classroom when they still had two more terms to go before the end of the
school year. The medical tests also made
a bit of a dent in the available funds.
The initial starting costs for Paul and
Lillian are around £480 each. This
includes buying school uniform, bedding and a metal box for all their possessions. From then on the termly costs will be about
£90 per term. Making a total for this
year (in which there is only one more term) of £570. Next year will be around £270 each child for
the whole year.
Please let me know if you are able to help by email so that I can send a gift aid form for Opportunity Through Education, our supporting charity. Rebeccamallinson1@hotmail.co.uk .
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