Kerala district kicks off sign language literacy mission

Though the hearing and speech impaired people communicate with each other easily, they find it difficult to communicate with the general public.

In a bid to ease certain problems being faced by the hearing and speech impaired while communicating with the general public, Thrissur district in Kerala has kicked off a sign language literacy mission.

The project, titled ‘Kaimozhi’, aims at imparting training to the public on basic sign languages so that the hearing and speech impaired individuals could communicate with others in society without difficulties. As an initial step, 240 students from 24 colleges in the district are now given the training and they have also started giving training to various groups.

Difficult with public

Even though the hearing and speech impaired people are now communicating with one another easily using sign languages, they often find it difficult to communicate with the general public, especially in emergency situations. Realising this, the Thrissur district administration recently launched the sign language literacy mission with the support of the National Institution of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (NIPMR).

Also Read | Kerala govt to engage sign language interpreters for important events

Thrissur sub collector Mohammed Shafeek, who is coordinating the project, said the sign language training in alphabets, numbers, days, months, wishing, relationships, names of districts and other basic aspects were imparted to the 240 odd students and some teachers who came up to take part in the project voluntarily. Some of them have already started passing on the knowledge to small groups in colleges as well as family and friends circles.

Good response

The voluntary programme is receiving a good response from the students. Most of the students who turned up to become trainers were volunteers of the National Service Scheme units in colleges.

The sign language literacy programme is part of various initiatives of the district administration for the welfare of the differently abled under the ‘Sasneham Thrissur’ project.