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The Portuguese Deaf Association worries a lot about the development of deaf communities,
especially in Portuguese-speaking countries, as well as worries a lot about the education of deaf children.
So thanks to the persistence and generosity of Mr. Manuel Lopes Rodrigues,
we can be here and we can try to help a little ...
The aim was mainly to see how were the conditions of the deaf here in Guinea Bissau, here in Bissau.
The information is very limited, there is almost no information.
I can say that there isn't really anything, anything. So we came here to try and give
some lights on what is a deaf person, on what is a sign language,
on how does a deaf community is created.
You don't hear. I also don't hear, like you.
He is embarassed, I can tell. Do you sign?
Are you 16? Is that it?
How does the father communicates with his son? How daes he talk to him?
With signs - he is saying - it's with signs.
And you can understand everything? Yes.
Yes? Then it means that he's smart. He's smart.
That's his work, it's to put a candle..
We went to Amaré's village, we arranged to meet with a group of deaf people in his house,
to hang out and get to know each other. It was very amusing.
The culture is very different.
The topics were:
what was theirs jobs, their ages, if they had any family, whether they are married, if they had children.
Amaré said they also knew signs about sports, movies...
He also remembered the sign names of canditates for president.
Funny, I was watching two women seated,
who were married and had children, they were talking between them
and they said: "My house is over there"
they communicated by mime, and the other said "I live te other way."
It is a very basic mime. They are nine in the same village
and it seems that other groups of deaf get together in other villages
and they communicate with each other. They should be brought together.
Here we have five of them who are neighbors.
How old is he?
4
It is important that there are deaf with different ages for him to see.
I have a son.
Now I don't work.
My husband is not here, he is away.
How many children do you have?
I have six, but one died.
One is here, the other is there and another is somewhere else.
AGRICE (association of the blind) has been the reason for us being here.
If it was not for AGRICE, the Portuguese Deaf Association would never have been contacted.
We received the visit of Mr.. José Augusto Lopes, in January, at the Portuguese Deaf Association,
and he explained the situation to us. He said there were 97 deaf children and young people
and they did not know what to do with them.
We at the Portuguese Deaf Association were very worried, because there were many children,
97 are nearly 100 children, it's many children. So we made every effort to come here.
And then we also had a great insistence of Mr. Manuel Lopes Rodrigues
and this insistence was crucial for us to come, and his support, of course.
Children, we are anxious for the children.
There are two classrooms. When we got there, we realised that it was not a school only for the blind,
it is a school for the hearing, a "normal" one, as they say,
hearing and visual. There is a section that is the special unit.
It is a unit with a room for the blind and another one for the deaf,
but they said they had 97 deaf students in the same room with different schedules.
What would you like now that these children have
in order to get a better education?
Better? To know more signs. That is what is important to them.
Because a place, a school like this, we must borrowed it to teach them like this.
We think that when we have another place like that we can have more space,
because here is not enough. There are too many deaf. Here the space is too cramped.
In order for some of them to be able to study, we need three shifts:
one begins in the morning, finishes at 11 o'clock, another one begins at 11.
How are the schedules here? One begins at 9...
Three shifts: one from 8, 7 am to 11 o'clock, the others begin at 11 am to 3 pm,
the others begin at 3 pm to 6 pm.
Even with that, there are many students whithout a place for them, with no access to this school.
We want, if we have the means, to build our own school, bigger,
so that all children have access to school.
A question, do the three groups have contact with each other?
For example, in the recess, when a shift ends and another begins, do they contact with each other?
Yes, yes, they do.
But, for example, does the first group contact with the last one?
Only the middle group is that lucky: they meet the first and the last group.
It was important they all knew each other. The more...
We are really happy with this group, because they knew almost nothing,
but they are so eager to learn, so willing. They are all so interested,
so motivated and it's funny because we are saying things and it's too much information,
because, there's nothing here, so it's too much information that we are transmitting,
and we are very happy because the teachers are assimilating the most important.
It's like here, although they are behind, they look like if they are ahead,
because the most important they already know. They already know that for the deaf
the essential is being together and having sign language. That they already know and this is the most important.
Next monday we will start working with children.
We want to show them how the teaching is with the bilingual method,
working simultaneously sign language and Portuguese.
I wanted to avoid using methods from Portugal because here culture is very different.
We need to work stories with texts from here and we were lucky with the material there is here.
We have photos showing day life here and the texts are from here.
It's a girl.
It's a boy.
It's a woman.
It's a man.
a - o - a - o
The class with the children was very good, I felt it was very good.
It was very important teachers were there and they were surprised to learn that it is possible.
The theme was gender, male and female,
which led children into thinking for themselves.
I thought it was possible to work in two, one week.
I wanted to assess what they know, see how far they can go,
but I was blocked, because, for example:
tables were lined up, which is not good visually, there were many children of different ages, about 20...
In Portugal, a class has eight students at the most and you can work with everyone looking at each other,
and eight is already a lot, imagine here...
Yesterday there were twenty of them, the youngest was 5 years old and the oldest 20 and such...
I tried to organize them, but it wasn't easy. Today, in the first class, we gave a very simple lesson, to exemplify the bilingual method:
"o" and "a", male and female, with their own signs of Guinea-Bissau,
man and woman. We explained that, for example, a name may be male...
The older ones have many difficulties, they make many errors in writing.
Today, in the morning, we organized the tables in C-shape
and so everyone could see each other and they were more interested in the class.
We thought they were more behind than they actually are. We were...
We already know some of the children and we were very impressed, my colleague Marta and me,
she teaches deaf children for long time, we were both very impressed,
because here the deaf children have a good mind. Children are very smart,
they already have some sign language. We also met some young deaf
and they already have a sign language. I think that now what they need is to be together
so they can develop this language. We have not worked writing with the deaf students,
because we feel and we argue that the most important for deaf children
is developing sign language, because only developing a language of their own,
that is natural, they are able to develop thinking.
We can see that half the children communicate with random signs,
and they are random when they communicate with the teacher,
but when talking to each other, it seems that they use a very deep mime.
It's from then on that we want them to develop their language, we don't want to influence them.
It's funny that everything is very basic, but, on the other hand, they already know the importance
of the deaf being together and of giving priority to sign language.
It's basic here, but they are aware of the most important.
'Manual Alphabet' (in Portuguese Sign Language)
'Week days' (in Portuguese Sign Language)
'Name sign' (in Portuguese Sign Language)
These are the textbooks of the elementary school.
There was a woman who talked about the homework, things like cleaning...
It's funny, because she said she cleaned the cobwebs from the ceiling,
or she scraped candle drops. It's funny because these are things from here.
Or they fetch water in a bucket, they use a mosquito net on their beds.
Also how they bathe, mothers bathe their children in a basin.
It's different from Portugal.
Here they burn litter.
There are no washing machines, so they do the laundry by hand.
They use fire to cook, they put the pots on the fire and they cook.
Here, most people don't have electricity and they adapt their lives to it.
'Corn'
'Papaya'
'Banana'
'Coconut'
'Fish'
'Sun'
'Rain'
'Cloud'
'To bathe'
'To sweep'
'Deaf'
'Light'
'Airplane'
We worked hard this weekend for the dictionary.
We finished it very late on Sunday. We got 222 words. Not bad.
This is Daio.
This is me.
Amaré's parents, his parents are really nice, and we notice that they are interested
in the welfare of their son, they care about him and especially about a good future for him.
It was very positive and today I had more time with Amaré (doesn't have a name sign yet). We communicate in writing.
He wants to meet the President of the Portuguese Deaf Association.
He also wants to be president in the future but first he wants to see how it is in Portugal.
We'll see. But there is a problem, if he is president and stays in Portugal, he'll be divided.
We have communicated a lot in writing and he told me about his life ...
This is Amaré that is about to go to Portugal,
but before we gave him a book and a suitcase for him to fill and go to Portugal.
It was funny, we have communicated only in writing, and sometimes communication fails, but hopefully,
when he arrives in Portugal, we can stop writing, keep the notebooks,
put them away on a shelf and begin to communicate by signs.
Hopefully when he comes back, he can be a leader here.
When we return to Portugal we will talk to people,
because it is urgent to create a school, it is urgent that Amaré goes to Portugal,
it is urgent that deaf socialize with each other ...
It is urgent ...
It is urgent, yes...
We can not stop ...
Change is urgent, urgent ...
It is urgent to develop.
Deaf community has already evolved so much in the world.
And here there is no sign language, there is no association, there is no school ...
There is nothing yet for the deaf, how is it possible? ...
I wonder in the world, which countries are like this one.
I don't know any...
Sao Tome and Principe and Cape Verde in part.
Now we'll take the van because they will take the children home in different villages.
Let's see where everyone lives and who is picking them up.
Come on!
This is Amaré we knew when we were here last year.
He went to Portugal in November. He arrived on a special day for the Portuguese Deaf community.
At the time he was confused and we liked him to tell us how it was.
He returned on the 21st of July, he stayed there for almost a year.
When I arrived and saw deaf communicating I was amazed.
And in the Association's training, what have you learned during this year?
I learned many different things.
It was difficult to learn Portuguese Sign Language?
It was easy, as I have identity, I focused and it was easy.
What is your dream when you finish the instructor's course in Portugal?
To build an association to improve deaf community.
When we came here last year we trained teachers
and deaf children as well. This year we came here only to work in the dictionary,
These two children are an example of children who sleep here in the blind's dormitory
and use the language 24 hours a day. We should compare them with the others.
Next Monday, we'll have more children who are not staying here in the dorm,
they come and go, they have parents. We should compare the two languages and register them.
I have three deaf siblings.
and two deaf more who have already died.
It was a man and a woman.
They died of illness.
Do you think Danilson is a happy child? Very happy, yes he is happy.
We came with the goal of making the dictionary, of improving it.
Last year we made a very simple one, with photos, that we printed.
People liked the dictionary, so we felt it needed to be improved and published,
that's why we came here.
Last week, many deaf people came and we worked every day.
On Monday, they came so many that it was a bit confusing.
We watched them and chose those who were better in sign language.
We worked with them, but it was also a bit difficult because, for example,
simple words about parts of the house, bedroom, bathroom,
such words, they still have no signs for them.
They can explain all about fruit, like the mango, how it appears and grows.
or even about fish, since it is fished until it is sold. They describe it very well visually.
'Interior of the house'
'Muslim'
'Universal church'
'To paint'
'To weave'
'To sew'
'To be grounded'
'To die'
'Knife'
'Coconut'
'Bread'
'Salt'
'Sugar cane'
'Pig'
'Cow'
'Horse'
'Cat'
'T-shirt'
September, October, November, December are signs from Portugal. Not from here, here signs are different.
'Months of the year'
'Brazil'
'Portugal'
'Name signs'
Read what is written here, all by your self.
'Abu... was... two... '
What is this?
'...weeks in Guinea-Bissau.'
'He is at the deaf school ...'
'...every day.'
'He had lots of fun, he played ball ...'
'...new friends.'
'He always saw his mother, it was good.'
This one is missing, you've eaten this word. At what time was it?
'In the afternoon.'
'On the 31, goes back Portugal.'
This word is missing, I didn't see you saying it.
'...October goes back Portugal. Sadly doesn't know when returns Guinea.'
Congratulations!
He knows that it's not 'one' it's 'two'. He'll have to put the 's' in 'weeks', so that he already knows.
Usually it is good to let them write what they know and then...
'Two weeks' is missing.
This is feminine, 'a'.
What about this? It's not masculine, it's feminine.
This one is easy.
'Stay two weeks'
'Every day.'
'...t - u - g...'
A small word is missing: 'to', go back 'to'.
Good, now the full stop is missing.
We met the children, the young deaf people and we started to see that they had some signs.
Why? How they had signs?
Because if, in a place, usually the school, deaf people come together, they need to communicate.
We made a first dictionary, this first dictionary, with some signs.
At that time it also began the movement to create the deaf association of Guinea-Bissau,
in order to fight for the rights of deaf people, and especially the rights of deaf children
to education, therefore they also wanted to create a school for deaf only.
We then came the following year, in 2006, for the sole purpose of working on the dictionary.
We got together children, youth, adults, about 60 deaf every day.
All day long, every day, working, filming.
And at that time, then, we filmed them discussing various topics.
We didn't do anything, we just watched and filmed it.