This is our first and still most important project with 70% of our commitment. The Kemper Foundation encourages parents of deaf children to organize themselves in so-called “Foyers des Sourds”. These Foyers look for someone from their community who is willing to train as a sign language monitor and then teach their deaf children this sign language and thus further improve their literacy. In the 2022-2023 school year, 16 Foyers were active with 198 deaf students.<\/p>\n
The Kemper Foundation finances the training of the sign language monitor, the rental of a classroom, the development and distribution of learning materials for the deaf, and part of the teacher’s salary. If necessary, the Kemper Foundation will contribute to the construction of a classroom.<\/p>\n
Responsibilities<\/strong><\/p>\n The responsibility for a Foyer or a “supported class” rests with the local association of deaf people assisted by the Kemper Foundation. It is this association that recruits the deaf children and their monitor.<\/p>\n The Kemper Foundation and its partners provide these classes :<\/p>\n We provide the classroom for the course and the furniture together with the local community.<\/p>\n Babacar’s concrete example Babacar was born in a village in southern Senegal. He has 3 older brothers and 2 younger sisters. His father is a carpenter. His parents also sell some fruit and vegetables that they grow on a small plot of land. They manage to send the children to school. Babacar was also part of that, until he got meningitis when he was 8. He survived, but became deaf. He was forced to stay at home for four years and helped with odd jobs around the house. There were no opportunities at school to educate him as well. The only school for the deaf in the country is in Dakar, too far away and unaffordable for his parents. He could no longer communicate well, forgot how to speak because he could not hear what he was saying. All his friends, brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces went to school. He didn’t, could no longer speak to them and was no longer seen as a full person. Even within the family he could hardly express himself or make things clear. Over time he withdrew more and more, often sitting in a corner of the grounds around their house and occasionally had terrible outbursts of anger, for reasons that remained unclear to his parents. Over the years, people from the village assumed that he was not only deaf, but also retarded or mentally handicapped. He no longer participated and no longer belonged, much to his sorrow and that of his parents.<\/p>\n Fortunately, this gloomy picture is now a thing of the past. When he turned 12, a literacy course for the deaf (developed and financed by the Kemper Foundation) was organized in the Learning Hostel of their village. He was there from the beginning and this completely changed his life. He has learned sign language, just like one of his brothers, who occasionally comes along to also learn sign language. He met other deaf children, of whom there turned out to be quite a few in the area, but who also did not leave their family area. He learned to write and calculate. He turned out to be very bright and picked it all up quickly, sometimes to the surprise of fellow villagers, who thought that someone who can only produce unclear sounds cannot be smart. But the biggest change for Babacar is that he is competing again. He also goes to school every day, like other children, and has a future again. He dares to dream again about what he would like to become later. He would like to start a shop. Then he can make good use of arithmetic, which he is great at. And with his brother as an interpreter, he can again make it clear what he wants, what is going on in his mind. After the first year, his parents saw him change from a quiet, withdrawn and isolated boy to a cheerful child who gets up first every day. His father tells how he had actually already given up on him. He never thought they could achieve so much with the course. He himself is illiterate and his deaf son can write and calculate as well as the best. He is happy that this opportunity has been created for his son.<\/p>\n We want many more deaf children to have such an opportunity.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is our first and still most important project with 70% of our commitment. The Kemper Foundation encourages parents of deaf children to organize themselves in so-called “Foyers des Sourds”. These Foyers look for someone from their community who is … Continue reading \n
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