First classes in UNRWA schools

Today was the first day of teaching Arabic sign language in UNRWA schools. Needless to say it didn’t come without a few bumps along the way, but power cuts are to be expected in Lebanon and the Self Help Group didn’t appear to be the slightest bit phased when the power went and they couldn’t use the microphone or power point presentation they prepared. In fact, they continued on asking the students to guess what the letters would be and even when the power came back, there was very little reliance on the power point presentation.

Tahani was confident in her role and encouraging the students, Fatmeh moved about the classroom confidently motivating students to participate, and Khodor, also moved about the classroom self assuredly, taking photos and helping the students with the sign language alphabet.

Most teachers will know that it takes time to gain the confidence to walk around a classroom and fully interact with the children, but the SHG looked like they had been teachers for years and the children responded incredibly well, all wanting to guess the answers and practically jumping out of their seats to be chosen to come to the front of the class.
As we continue our work, the children will not only gain awareness of sign language and difficulties that speech and hearing impaired people face, but will truly have the skills to interact with them in a natural way. It was a moment to be proud of in the project for the ‘Right to Education for people with disabilities’.