10-year-old Falida Overcomes Educational Challenges Faced by Children with Deafness.

Falida is a ten -year old girl at Chapendeka Village in the area of Traditional Authority Mazengera  in Lilongwe. 

The aspiring teacher has speech and hearing challenges. Despite her challenges, she goes to school and is now in grade three. At school, Falida mixes with other learners. Her teacher, Angella Ngwira has been in the teaching service for seven years now.

She is however worried that sometimes it is harder to interpret lessons to the best of her comprehension as her school does not have any trained Special Needs Education (SNE) teachers.

“Falida is a brilliant young girl, but because we do not have the special needs education training, it is not easy for us to communicate with her,” says Ngwira. However, Ngwira learnt some sign language basic skills from a colleague who got the training. She tries to use the skills to interact with Falida.

“I have basic sign language skills which I learnt from a friend as our school does not have a special needs teacher. So I use the skills to communicate with Falida, Luckily we click on a few things,” adds Ngwira.

36 year old Gertrude is Falida’s mother. She has five children, Falida being the fourth born. She is the only one who can communicate with Falida effectively at home as she has been trained in sign language.

At home, Gertrude helps her daughter with comprehending some text book stories. This has made the two very close friends.

“I interact with my daughter so easily using my basic sign language skills which I acquired through some training. This has helped me communicate with Falida so easily,” says Gertrude.

Despite having speech and hearing challenges, Falida mingles with her peers so easily. She likes playing ball games and a few other outdoor games.

Through her mother, Falida explains that she wants to be a teacher when she completes her studies.

 She says she does not want other children to go through the same challenges with education as she has experienced. 

She says Government must train more special needs teachers so that children like her has the same opportunity to access of education like any other.

“Children like me do not have the same education opportunities as others because there are not enough trained sign language teachers in government school. My plea is that government should train more to help us with our education,” says Falida.

World Vision Malawi through its Tiwerenge 365 technical program is implementing Digital Books Projects which is playing a critical role in helping children like Falida access books without problems.

The project integrates over 270 digital accessible books, many with audio and sign language video features, supporting universal design learning for all children, including those with disabilities. Operating across 60 reading clubs that meet twice weekly, this innovative educational program has reached 3,500 across Malawi, including more than 90 children with identified, print, learning, and hearing disabilities in their programs.

Working with Malawi National Association of the Deaf (MANAD), the project extended to seven schools for children with deafness.