Nzeve in the community

Most parents of young deaf children are unaware of the impact of deafness and have never met a capable deaf person. Nzeve works hard to educate the whole community.

Community deaf awareness: clinic visits
Early identification of deafness is of paramount importance for parents and their child, as it leads to early and appropriate intervention. In order to achieve this, Nzeve conducts awareness meetings through clinic visits to teach mothers about early detection of hearing loss.
Seven clinics were visited in which 542 people (475 females and 67 males) were reached. However, with all the efforts made through clinic visits, it is disappointing to note that only 5 children were referred for hearing tests from clinic visits this year.

Sign Language training for hearing ECD children
In 2019, the organisation identified two Early Childhood Education (ECD) centres for hearing children who showed their interests in learning sign language. Therefore two Nzeve Communication Assistants (deaf and hearing) conducted sign language training sessions every week. The trainers began with simpler sign vocabulary for food, animals and transport, but by the end of the year the hearing learners had gained more vocabulary which included description of objects by colour as well as story-telling. It is hoped that this programme will spread to more ECD centres for hearing children, thereby improving social inclusion for deaf children in Mutare Urban.

Parents’ outreach community visits
Six champion mothers of deaf children took turns to visit rural communities in order to give awareness to community leaders and other members of the community about deaf awareness. In 2019, seven outreach visits were carried out in which 536 community members were reached in different districts of Manicaland province. During the outreach visits, the parents shared their life stories with their deaf children, which helped the community members understand the importance of education for the deaf, and to reduce discrimination against children with disabilities. Community members were taught about early identification of deaf children, and where to refer cases of deafness and other disabilities. This year, 16 deaf children were identified from parents’ outreach visits, and these were referred for various services and interventions.