Sign language proves to be a vital skill for ex-King George VI pupil Valentine Nyoni (front row right) with members of the hearing impaired community in Victoria Falls

Leonard Ncube in Victoria Falls 

MR VALENTINE Vincent Nyoni (28) was born with cerebral palsy, a group of disorders that affect a person’s ability to move and maintain balance and posture.

He uses a wheelchair donated to him by Sister Sandra, a Catholic nun at St Luke’s Hospital in 2016, but the wheeler is now too old.

Despite his condition, Mr Nyoni does not view himself as disabled.

King George VI in Bulawayo

He believes he can transform livelihoods of people with disability in general and the hearing impaired (HI) in particular.

Interaction with people with all kinds of disability at King George VI in Bulawayo where he did Grade 1 to Form 4 made Mr Nyoni learn basic sign language.

He is using these basic skills to capacitate the hearing impaired community in Victoria Falls that had over the years been neglected due to lack of trained interpreters.

Mr Nyoni has suported various national events for people with disability and has assisted the Victoria Falls Magistrates’ Courts with sign language material.

There is no resident sign language interpreter at the Victoria Falls Court.

Mr Nyoni has registered the Victoria Falls Deaf Trust with the Zimbabwe Youth Council to cater for the hearing impaired.

Already, 16 people from Victoria Falls are members and he has been volunteering to train them in sign language, one of the 16 official languages in the country as is contained in the Constitution.

However, it is lack of capacitation in the mainstream society, especially service providers, that is a cause for concern and resulting in the hearing impaired community being left out of programming and sometimes falling victim to societal ills.

Mr Nyoni has implored authorities to establish a sign language school in Victoria Falls and service providers to open desks specifically for that section of society.

“We all have to be treated equally as people. My wish was to have an association for all disabled people including youths. I want to be the voice of people with disability particularly the deaf because they are being neglected due to communication barriers,” said Mr Nyoni.

He said he had approached the Victoria Falls City Council and the Ministry of Health and Child Care to allow him to volunteer to train nurses at health facilities and is waiting for authorisation. 

“I am doing all this on voluntary basis,” said Mr Nyoni.

He has been doing informal training with Sunrise Sign Language Academy in Harare to enhance his skills and his vision is to train for a degree or diploma in sign language.

He completed his Ordinary Level studies in 2014, but is yet to collect results because he owes school fees.

“When I returned from school I realised that many people here had dependence syndrome. At KGVI they gave us a challenge to be self-reliant.

I noticed that deaf people were neglected as there was no sign language interpreter for them in Victoria Falls and this touched me. 

“I started using basic skills I had learnt at KGVI through interaction with deaf colleagues.

I have upgraded my basic skills through informal training and wish I could now go for a diploma or degree but I don’t have money,” said Mr Nyoni.

He has organisied a number of sign language training workshops in Victoria Falls with the recent one taking place last month, conducted by Sunrise Sign Language Academy.

Mr Nyoni said he felt sorry for sidelined  hearing impaired citizens as public offices mainly focus of people with other forms of disability.

“Right now the deaf can feel welcome in society because of these efforts.

I managed to mobilise 16 of them in Victoria Falls and currently I have volunteered to train a Grade 5 pupil that dropped out of school because there was no sign language teacher at his school.

The special class teacher focused on other forms of disability because she had no sign language skills.

“I noticed the danger of people learning home sign language which becomes a communication barrier when they seek services.

These people become victims mostly because of communication barriers and this is why we have been organising workshops to push a common agenda for all disabled people,” he said. 

Born on May 21, 1994, Mr Nyoni is a second born in a family of four.

His father is late and he stays in Mkhosana suburb with his mother and siblings.

He said at home he grew up taking turns to do household chores with his siblings which taught him to be self-reliant and not depend on donors.

Mr Nyoni is unemployed and survives on those who pay him for his sign language skills as well as well-wishers.

He bemoaned sidelining of people with disability in job opportunities, especially on the pretext that they do not have required qualifications.

– @ncubeleon 

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