Do we really mean “all” when we say education for all?

Next week the Global Campaign for Education will launch its latest Action Week and attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the biggest lesson ever… If you’re a teacher or a student you might want to find out how your school can get involved or download free lesson plans at the Send My Friend website

Oxfam are talking about Global Action Week on their blog - but I’m wondering how much attention they’ve paid to the fact that worldwide one third of the out of school children have a disability…

What I find hard to understand is the fact that many international development organisations acknowledge that more girls than boys miss out on education and have made sure they focus on this in their programmes. But despite the scary statistic that 98% of disabled children in developing countries are not in school, not nearly as many organisations seem to have wised up to the fact that “education for all” will never be a reality unless we can make sure that disabled and deaf children can get to school, too.

That means that international organisations need to focus more of their efforts on making education in developing countries accessible. For many deaf children in developing countries that means providing education in the national Sign Language, either by training deaf teachers or providing interpreters. It’s not only about the schools, we also need to make sure communities are aware of their children’s rights and help challenge the stigma attached to disability.

All our governments can play a role – not only in allocating funding to education, but also in ensuring that funding is used to reform the education system to make sure that it genuinely meets the needs of all children. Civil society can support families with disabled or deaf children to campaign for their rights and provide models of inclusive education.

If you want to get involved in the Global Campaign – why not think about how you can raise the profile of all those disabled children missing out on school and ask questions about how governments and mainstream organisations make sure they’re included…I hope one day that education for all will really mean all.

Can a UN convention change the world?

On 3 April, Ecuador became the 20th country to ratify the UN Convention on Persons With Disabilities which means that on 3 May, the convention comes into force globally.

Whilst the convention could be a powerful legal tool to change the lives of the 650 million disabled people worldwide – I wonder whether it will be? There is already so much legislation already failing to be implemented all over the developing world…

The convention has raised the profile of shocking human rights abuses suffered by disabled people (and deaf children!) all over the world – and it has forced governments to think about their responsibilities to ensure equal rights. But will it – actually lead to ACTION? Or will it simply be an opportunity for nice announcements and new unimplemented laws…?

To avoid this – holding governments to account and providing practical examples of what’s possible – is essential and that’s where civil society (like us) comes in! We work with movements of deaf children and their families and local organisations to make sure that rights become reality for deaf children…and we will keep working till we succeed!

I’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can make the rights in the UN Convention become real around the world. Another good place to look for stories/thoughts on the convention is the RatifyNow Blog Swarm

5 top tips for finding out about deaf people in different countries

We reply to lots of requests for information from people all over the world who want to find out more about what’s happening for deaf children in their country or somewhere where they have visited. Here are the best places to look:

1. Deaf Child Worldwide Network… OK – so I have to big up our own site first – but we do have a database of over 1000 organisations with an interest in childhood deafness worldwide. You can search by country and get contact details for all the organisations listed.

2. The World Federation of the Deaf is the central international organisation of national associations of Deaf people. It’s national members are based in 127 countries worldwide, and are the people to contact if you want to get in touch with the adult Deaf community in any country.

3. Deaf Cultures and Sign Languages of the World has lists of web-based sources from many of the world’s countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Check it out to find out more about what’s out going on out there.

4. Gallaudet University – the world’s first Sign Language bilingual university has a list of published material on deaf people, deaf culture and sign language in other countries. You’ll need access to a library to get to this stuff, but it makes interesting reading if you do.

5. On the ground – if you are in a country – your first stop should be deaf schools or clubs in your area. You can also contact the Ministry of Education (for deaf schools), Ministry of Health (for audiology services and outreach workers). If you can’t find a deaf association, finding the National Umbrella Organisation for Associations of Disabled People might help you get in touch.

Hope this is useful – please let me know if you’ve got any additions to this list or if you know of other useful resources…

Family matters…

…a lot to deaf children. As our organisation was set up by and is governed by parents of deaf children we are committed to working through families to reach deaf children. But in developing countries, families have so many different priorities… getting money, getting food, where to live, someone’s sick …the daily grind means that a child’s deafness is the last thing to worry about. For example in Kenya, one adult in five fails to meet their basic food needs every day. In the same country we did research that showed families were unwilling to pay school/medical fees for their deaf kids because they didn’t believe they would get the same return on their investment as with their other children.

At Deaf Child Worldwide, we believe that situation can change. There are practical steps that can be taken to help families support their deaf children and give them equal opportunities with others at home. The answer is to make sure families understand that their deaf children are capable of going to school and getting employment…make sure families have the ability to communicate with their kids and know about what organisations are out there to support them. Outreaching to families who know nothing about deafness is a key objective of our organisation – making services accessible to families is a personal passion too – that’s why I worked with the Enabling Education Network to produce a book Family Friendly! Working with deaf children and their communities worldwide It’s an action learning toolkit filled with real life case studies of what our partners and others have done to make sure families are able to support their deaf children… You can download it here or e-mail me at info@deafchildworldwide.org to get a paper or CD Rom copy…