Video: campaign for medical outreach to school for the deaf

In Imo State, Nigeria, a local non-governmental organisation is campaigning for funds to take a free medical mission to a school for the deaf.

Recently I wrote about the exclusion of deaf adolescents in Nigeria from sexual health education, and the need for specially designed learning materials to help hearing impaired adolescents learn about sexual and reproductive health issues, such as preventing unwanted pregnancies and HIV.

Dr Emmanuel Asonye, founder of local organisation Save the Deaf and Endangered Languages Initiative (S-Deli), says: “We cannot tell you the level of stigmatisation that these students are vulnerable to, but what we can tell you is that these kids deserve more than what society has given them.”

Campaign video

Indiegogo campaign

As a volunteer media advisor for S-Deli, I’ve helped create a campaign on the online fundraising website indiegogo, to help them raise funds to carry out a medical mission to the school. The plan is to carry out eye screening and treatments, sexual and reproductive health education, HIV counseling and testing.

From a pre-project assessment, I discovered that there have been various promises from the state government to provide the school with some of the basic things they need like electricity and security. But for years the students have spent their nights in darkness, and still do today.

Electricity is crucial because the students cannot communicate after dark unless they can see each other. Lack of light also affects their security, and there have been cases of sexual abuse and rape in the past.

For more details on the project and to make a donation, please visit the campaign page.