A person with disabilities is first of all a person with abilities and the creation of a favorable environment for this to develop the personality is the guarantee of personal success and of the success of the community of which such persons form part. Alongside other series that look at 2018 in retrospect, IPN comes with a series of articles about people who live with a disability and about organizations that promote the rights of these people.
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The persons with disabilities in the Republic of Moldova face serious communication barriers for the reason that not many of them know the sign language. Natalia Babici, first vice president of the Association of the Deaf of the Republic of Moldova, said in Moldova there are only 17 sign language interpreters authorized by the Ministry of Justice. Four of these work in Chisinau, three in Balti and by one in Cahul and Cimislia. The other eight specialists work at special schools for persons with hearing impairments. Thus, the ratio of sign language interpreters to persons with hearing impairments is of 1:150. The recommended proportion is of at least two interpreters per 50 persons with hearing impairments.
In 2018, the Association of the Deaf, in partnership with Infonet Alliance, launched a number of books and guidebooks designed to help persons with hearing impairments learn the sign language, as well as other persons, such as teachers, parents of children with hearing impairments, employers and all those who want to learn the sign language. Currently, they work on a study that will be launched soon. This is entitled “Employment barriers and opportunities for persons with hearings impairments in the Republic of Moldova”.
“By these books, we aim to offer support first of all to teachers of general schools, who most of the times do not know how to communicate with these children. The teachers do not know the sign language and cannot explain what they teach to these children. A person with hearing impairments can learn to write and to read only if the teacher knows to explain each word in sign language,” stated the first vice president of the Association of the Deaf.
According to Natalia Babici, to increase the number of specialists who know the sign language, the program used at the Teacher Training University “Ion Creangă” for two years, in the master’s degree courses where students learned the sign language, should be reanimated.
Among the objectives of the Association of the Deaf next year are to implement inclusive education projects intended for children with hearing impairments and to ensure broader access to universities. For now, higher education remains an unfulfilled dream for most of the persons with hearing impairments in the Republic of Moldova. During the past three years, only three young people managed to graduate from a university. The access to information, facilitation of communication and training of more sign language interpreters are also among the priorities. Assisting the persons with hearing impairments in finding a job is another objective of the Association of the Deaf.
Ion Ciobanu, IPN
