Organizations to use sign language in service delivery

Supreme Sign Institute (SSI) has embarked on a survey to help gather vocabularies and terminologies from service providing institutions both private and public, to aid in the effective communication between non-deaf and deaf people.

These vocabularies and terminologies would be developed into a standardized sign language skills training manual to help the sign language school to provide training for non-deaf people to make their service delivery deaf friendly.

Mr Newell Agbe, Executive Director of Supreme Sign Institute, said the none existence of a standardized sign language skills training manual in the country since independence, has affected the acquisition and sign language skills usage, hence the need to develop this manual.

The Executive Director in a press briefing on Thursday said this professional sign language training is to promote the use of sign language on a larger scale to overcome the challenges encountered when dealing with such people.

Mr Agbe mentioned some institutions targeted to benefit from the training programme to include faith-based organisations, Ghana Revenue Authority, Ghana National Fire Service, National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE), Association of Banking Institutions and the Ghana Journalists Association.

The rest are the Judicial Service, Disease Control Outfits, Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Ghana Immigration Service, Artisans Associations and Parents of Deaf Children.

He said these institutions are in the fore-front of delivering service to the deaf and as such it is important for them to know basic sign language that would enable them deal effectively with the hearing impaired citizens of the country.

The Executive Director further stated that the skills training in sign language would be offered to churches who would want to use sign language to communicate with their congregation, adding that, policies would also be developed to help teach sign language at the basic level.

He stressed that all these are geared towards killing the stigmatization in societies and make the country a free and friendly atmosphere for the hearing impaired, for them to feel loved and part of society.

He thus expressed gratitude for the grant support from the Skills Development Fund (SDF) and promised that his outfit would do well to deliver the best sign language training as well as interpreting services to promote a perfect integration of the Deaf in Ghana.