Persons with Deafblindness have often been hidden and had no possibility to communicate easily. Because Deafblindness is a low occurrence disability, persons with Deafblindness live far apart from each other, scattered in the country and few people have any idea of how to deal with them. People with this condition are often assumed to be having intellectual disabilities. They live for a long time without uniformed form of communication until old enough to improvise some signs.
These signs are usually the most essential statements of needs, such as to go to toilet, to eat, to drink, etc. The rest of the time, they are silent, unable to neither communicate nor learn anything with anybody. This case happened to FURAHA Jean Marie, who is actually Chair Person of Rwanda Organization of Persons with Deafblindness (ROPDB) as he has been elected by the organizations general assembly in November 2018 for the first time ROPDB's General Assembly. FURAHA Jean Marie is a strong and capable Leader who originally used sign language but applied a lot of vigor when he learnt some tactile signs.
This presented difficulties for the interpreter or communication recipient and other people. After the training on the tactile sign language as the main form of communication for the people with Deafblindness, now he works out exercises and flexes the hands and fingers to improve the strokes of his signs and is now more confident of the correct movement. His changes has testified that persons with Deafblindness can learn to communicate and lead to a fuller life, able to access more information and speak to other people if they learn tactile sign language and Braille. Currently FURAHA Jean Marie and UWIZEYIMANA Naomie started to study Braille.
Our Partners
