Yewlands FoS : Global

School for the deaf

First impressions as we arrived was that the journey from the village to the residential school made it quite remote and almost hidden from sight.

The children were very excited to see 2 jeeps of white faces, as we got out of the cars we were surrounded with many little hands trying to communicate as they scribbled on their arms with their fingers to write their names.

We had to think really quickly of how to manage the situation as the excitement had the potential to cause some conflict between the children as their enthusiasm and lack of verbal communication skills but more importantly our lack of non-verbal skills could potentially turn our best intentions into a disaster.

This was a visit which really tested our interpersonal skills.

A teaching assistant (who we later found our to be an ex-pupil) showed us to the head teacher, Agnus’ office. Many eager faces looked through the open door, the more physical pupils pushing their way to the front.

Agnus held her arm out, the children immediately calming down.

She introduced us to a sample of different pupils with multiple needs and explained what the school did to help. Some of these disabilities were caused through diseases such as meningitis or accidents. 

The pupils were taken from the age of 4 years, some still there at 23 years old. The school terms lasted 4 months and many did not see their parents for that length of time. Even at term end some parents did not collect their children.

Question: What do you think could be some of the reasons for this?

The school has support from two international groups, one German and one American. At the time of our visit there were six American students fully trained in ’signing’ who acted as classroom assistants and mentors.

On looking around Agnus’ office other donations were in evidence, these included a large unpacked fridge freezer and washing machine. We all wondered how long these had been their unused, unpacked and likened them to a wooley jumper grannie had bought for Christmas or an unwanted pair of socks.

Agnus carried on to tell us at the time she was barely able to feed the 300+ children twice a day because the government funding of £1.50 per child had not come through for the current term.

We all left with a feelign off having arrived at the school totally unprepared for what we experienced.

On the way back from the school we stopped briefly at the botanical gardens, obvious colonial influence here we soon discovered a tree planted by Queen Elizabeth in 1961 to commermorate her visit to Ghana after they got their independance from Britain in 1957.

One interesting observation about our group here was the intense air of reflection linked to the visit to the school.