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Silence No Longer a Barrier By Richard Geary
"My name is Ali. Can you help me find a job?" was the question posed by the bespectacled, somewhat insecure young deaf man. He approached me after my last class at the free Training Center for the Deaf that we run here in Karachi. Our center serves as a school, club and meeting place for the number of hearing impaired citizens in the community. In this city of over 14 million, I often need to be more than just a teacher, but also a father, helper, confidante and friend for the young deaf people who come to seek help and guidance in their lives. Ali continued in sign language, "I just arrived in Karachi from my village. I have 10 brothers and sisters, and need to help support my family." I was admittedly impressed, not only by Ali's determination and persistence, but also by his language skills. In a country where the literacy rate for normal people is less than 30%, and Urdu is the native language, Ali was able to communicate with me in basic English, which is a remarkable feat for a deaf person. As I inquired further, I learned that Ali, 24 at the time, had taught himself to read and write basic English by studying books at home in his village. Likewise he had also taught himself basic computer skills working on a friend's computer! I made Ali a deal. I'd help him to get a job, if he would commit himself to come after work to the center to get further training. I sensed in Ali, as with a jewel in the rough, certain qualities which, if they could be developed, would help him to reach his full potential. Employment opportunities are minimal in this large city, and wage scales are often appalling, yet with so few positions available there is much competition and many disappointed job seekers. There exist no job quotas for handicapped people as in more developed nations, and often people in Ali's position are left unemployed and struggling in poverty. Finding employment for young deaf people is one of our goals at Deaf Reach Training Center, and we were able to place Ali with a large oil company doing clerical work and logging inventories on their computer. Things went well, and he was able to provide the extra help and relief his family needed. The most exciting thing, however, was watching Ali blossom as he came daily to the center for training. Within a short period of time, his English skills increased rapidly, and he was soon able to read and write basic English with clarity and understanding. Additionally, within a few short months he mastered all the basic computer programs that we teach at the center. Arrangements were then made for Ali to take an advanced training course at a local computer school, and his inquisitive nature aided him in learning the material, in spite of his deafness and the language barrier. He progressed rapidly through all courses.
To make a long story short, Ali is now fully employed as a computer teacher at Deaf Reach Training Center, where he works full-time. To our knowledge, he is perhaps one of the only deaf computer teachers in Karachi. He teaches classes to over 50 deaf students a day, who learn exceptionally well as they get their classes in sign language. As one deaf boy put it, "I went to many computer schools but I could never learn much. I didn't understand the teachers. But Mr. Ali makes it so easy for me to understand!" Not only does he teach, but Ali also continues to learn. The Center has arranged for Ali to attend advanced level training courses, which range from Web Design to Java and Oracle. Ali then reinvests that training by passing on what he learns to the students he teaches at the center. As a result, we are now training and equipping young deaf men and women with job skills they might never have otherwise attained. Ali's story is just one among the many whose lives we've been able to impact in our volunteer work over the past 17 years. It stands out to us as a vivid illustration of how one changed life can have a ripple effect, and spread out to transform the lives of many others as well. Richard Geary is the Project Manager of Family Educational Services Foundation Karachi (FESF), a FCF project in Karachi, Pakistan. Among the programs administered by FES is the Deaf Reach Training Center. |
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