Hearing impaired woman aims for foreign scholarship
By A Staff Reporter
NEW DELHI: Monica
Nagpal cannot hear or speak. And she earns Rs 1,500
per month working with the Delhi
Foundation of Deaf Women. Nagpal submitted her bio-data
at the employment exchange three years ago, without
yielding any result. Now she is desperate for a job
that would give her little more financial security.
And the good news is her dreams may come true.
Nagpal and other members at the DFDW have been shortlisted
for educational assistance and training at the Gallaudet
University, USA. This university claims to be the only
one in the world that caters exclusively to deaf students,
from nursery classes through PhD programmes.
The DFDW has been selected along with four other deaf
associations based in Nepal and Philippines, respectively,
for the World Deaf Leadership program. The winner among
the five finalists will get US$ 60,000 a year for four
years, for teacher and parent training and all of them
get educational assistance from the university.
On Friday, deaf children, women, and parents of deaf
offsprings interacted with Robert T Mobley, Senda Benaissa,
Beverly Hollrah and Arthur Lee, all faculty members from
the university, as part of their assessment programme.
Though Indian and American sign languages are radically
different, the former uses both hands while the latter
uses only one hand for symbols.
"All the Indian hearing impaired women we met today
are extremely hardworking," said Mobley, director,
Centre for Global Education, Gallaudet University. "They
have put up a brave face against all odds. The situation
in USA is different from India as there you have mandates,
legislation, provision for interpretation and other facilities
for the hearing impaired. Moreover, deaf women anywhere
in the world seem to be facing more challenges than men
in similar situations."
Before
the deaf Indian women enroll for advanced training,
they will have to learn the American
sign language. "The
Indian sign language combines British and local signs," said
hearing impaired Reenee Kuriyan, a founder member of
the organisation. "Our students will do bridge courses
before they study advance levels."
Interacting
with the crowd was Krish Srikant, a DFDW member and
son of a hearing impaired
couple. "No
doubt life is tough for the deaf and dumb people," he
said. "My parents can't speak or hear so the sign
language became my mother tongue. They were able to sustain
themselves but are living a better life after they received
professional training. And that is what we hope to achieve
for the many deaf women dreaming of a better future as
they stand in this room."
Agreed Rema N, a hearing impaired software operations
student, who is looking forward to earning her livelihood.
"We need to create deaf awareness in Delhi," she
said. "People need to realise that those who can
hear should be categorised as the 'hearing' and not as
'normal.' As the opposite of 'normal' is 'abnormal' and
we are not abnormal in any way."
Source: The Times Of India
Dated 19th May, 2001
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