By JOSEPHINE IGBINOVIA

A graduate of English from the Lagos State University, her compassion for the talking and hearing impaired has laid upon her a new goal- to ensure they are shown love and given a sense of belonging. This passion recently spurred the inauguration of a Talking Fingers Ministry as a subdivision of her local church, The New Frontiers Church, in Lagos. Here, Deaconess(Mrs.)Rosemary Duamlong who is presently the Coordinator of the Talking Fingers Ministry shares her heart-felt concern towards the talking and hearing impaired.

Excerpts:

The Talking Fingers Ministry is a passion for me because it boils down to my desire to help people, make a change and better the lives of others around me, especially the talking and hearing impaired.

The ministry is actually out to reach out to as many hearing and talking impaired in our society as possible. These people are seen as stubborn, unfriendly, erratic, and some of us ordinarily avoid them. But the question I ask is: Do you show them love? You do not see the other side of someone unless you show him or her some measure of love! These people feel they are disenfranchised by the society because it doesn’t give them the same opportunity given to the hearing. For example, after getting some level of education, they(the hearing) are able to gain employment, but for the hearing impaired, it is not the same.

So, what do they do? They fight back by being aggressive to the society! All they need is just some measure of concern and love. Dealing with them in the last few months has made me realise that they are more humane than even the hearing people! They are loving, and many of them have got plans for the future. For example, some of them have indicated interest to be ushers in our church! So, very soon, they will start ushering in the church. Give them the same opportunity given to others and they won’t remain what society thinks they are.

Undermining my busy schedule as the Principal Consultant of a travels and tour firm in Lagos, Gren Business Dimensions, I went the extra mile to learn the sign language because of my passion for these people. I need to be able to communicate with them! Now, my children too are happily learning sign language! Working with them is actually interesting because it shows you the other side of life and how not to look down on people. It tells you that whatever you have in life is a privilege. That I have children, who are not deaf or dumb, is a privilege. So, do we throw away these ones who are not as privileged as we are?

The Talking Fingers Ministry is an arm of the New Frontiers Church in Apapa, Lagos. The church is presently doing a lot to take care of the spiritual needs of these people. We’ve realised that in Nigeria as a whole, we have over fifteen million deaf and dumb. According to my findings, not up to a thousand of them go to church! You can assume that the rest of them either do not know about God or know about God but do not have the opportunity to serve God.

So, spiritually, we want to give them that cover where they can go under to hear about God and also know more of Him in the midst of their hearing counterparts. We don’t just want to start a deaf church; we want them to mix up and feel what we feel every Sunday. Our Sunday service remains a normal service but the new dimension is that while the pastor is ministering, somebody else will be signing.

We also give them counsel and make them feel and understand that God loves them. Presently, the church is working on helping them build their destinies because we believe that everybody has a purpose in life.  We’ve also realised that they do not have the normal social life that hearing people have, so, we are organising socials for them by engaging them in games, taking them for outings to interesting areas, etc. In the area of education, those we can assist, we do assist and also counsel. Economically, the church is also trying to empower them through our Market Place Teaching class.

Mrs Duamlong

We’ve discovered that they can do so many creative things like fashion designing, painting, graphic art, computer operation, etc. They even did a drama presentation on the day we inaugurated the Talking Fingers Ministry! Against societal belief that they are useless, I am saying now that they are useful, and can do so many things if given the opportunity. That’s why we want to help them fulfill their destinies.

We believe that within a period of time, we would have been able to integrate our beneficiaries into the society. As part of our plans, we want to set up a resource centre where people could come in and learn sign language free of charge so that they can freely communicate with the hearing impaired wherever they find them.

The whole essence is to breach the communication barrier between the hearing and the hearing impaired. This is because we’ve noticed that these people get aggressive because each time they try to communicate, they are hardly understood.

We have somebody who is coming to train them in the art of painting. In the long run, these paintings will be exhibited and used for their economic enhancement. We are also keying into their various hobbies so we can guide them to improve on them and be established in those regards. For example, some of them say they like hair-dressing.

I must tell you that our society has not been fair to these people. I once visited a school, Favour Auditory/Oral School in Lagos, run by a man and his wife, and I was amazed! Parents just go there to pay and dump their children, and forget about them because they feel ashamed to be identified with them! You can imagine!  Our society is ashamed of them and sees most of them as beggars, but we seem to forget that we ourselves pushed them to become beggars when we refused to empower them.

Now, we are retraining the ones in our care to understand that they are not beggars!  In America, there is a law that insists that organizations/companies must make room for the disabled, but in Nigeria, do we have such? Even after completing their education, who would want to employ them? I want to advise all Nigerians to learn to show them love because they are God’s creatures. We should relate with them as normal human beings. For parents of these special children, I will say, love them more and you will be amazed at what will become of them.

I relate with them, eat and dine with them; I cannot be ashamed of them. A whole community in England recently went to learn the sign language so as to be able to communicate with the hearing impaired in their midst! You can imagine! The language is very easy to learn! If we could find time to learn how to use sign language, life will be better off for us all.