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CHANGING FACE OF DEAF WOMEN IN KERALA
THROUGH THE EXPERIENCE OF SILENT VALLEY
Smt. Vinaya Jose
Like anywhere else, hearing impaired women in Kerala too are subject to changing phase of a society where they are becoming more and more self-reliant and confident to chalk out a life for themselves. Various efforts at the level of voluntary organizations as well as at the level of government are being made to rehabilitate the women with hearing impairment so that she is able to earn a livelihood for herself. As part of mainstreaming them, the government of Kerala has issued notification towards the ‘Inclusive Education System’ from the year 2009.
Accordingly children with disability shall also be attending a normal school. It is indeed a welcoming gesture! Right now government has provided grants to special schools in all districts. Unlike a decade or before having children with disability was considered to be a matter of shame or burden but not now. Parents want them to be as self - reliant as possible and hence the number of disabled children attending special schools, vocational training centers and job oriented certificate courses have increased. However, experience show that hearing challenged women’s skills in language be it Malayalam or English is quite poor. This becomes a big hindrance in accepting and managing any job that involves skills in language. There is dearth of enough training centres that offers them ‘total communication’ skills in terms of lip reading, body language etc. This put them in a peculiar situation where they themselves are not able to manage any clerical or office oriented position if offered. Instead they are extremely capable of putting their hard labour in to garment making, candle making or starting a small scale industry.
Now for more than two decades or so there is a shift in the mindsets of hearing impaired women as well as their families regarding their marriage. Now they are very much eager to settle down after marriage. Nearly 90% of hearing impaired women are married to men who are hearing impaired, partially hearing challenged or in some rare cases they are normal men. They have normal children who go to school and both husband and wife comfortably manage their profession as well as home. Quite recently though we have started getting cases of adjustment problems within couples who are both hearing impaired leading to even separation. Alcoholism rates among the hearing impaired men have also risen causing family disputes. A detailed study needs to be done to extract further information and to know the reasons behind such a change in family situation. Even though welfare measures and policies are formulated by the state there should be deliberate attempt to include persons with disabilities in all development processes in order to break the vicious cycle of poverty and disability. Equality, freedom, justice and dignity as ensured in the Constitution of India implicitly mandates an inclusive society for all including persons with disabilities. Its time we should stand together to make the world realize that hearing impaired women are no way vulnerable or marginalized. They just have to make their voices hear!
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DFDW Videos III Cultural Festival of India for Deaf Women December 29, 2008 : Kamani Auditorium, New Delhi DANCE : First Prize Gujarat
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