A wonderful yet humbling day
Today we had the opportunity to return to the Ngala School for the Deaf. This is a government-run school for deaf children from age 4 & 1/2 to 28. There are 223 students in the school, and they are grossly underfunded. They have to compete for resources with everything else in the education system, and the deaf are not regarded as worthy of the effort. They are marginalized and forgotten by society. We were told in 2023 when we last visited the school that some children when they start at Ngala don’t even know that they have a name. I can’t wrap my head around that! They come from families where even their parents are unable to communicate with them through signing or any other method. When they enter the school, they need to be taught absolutely everything. I have zero desire to bring politics into this or imply anything about western cultural issues, but they often don’t know that they are male or female. They need to be taught absolutely everything from scratch. There is no...
