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{
    "id": 799904,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/799904/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 263,
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    "content": "more than English. We can claim that Kiswahili is widely spoken in Kenya. Therefore, everybody should have an opportunity to get information and learn Kiswahili Language regardless of the groupings they belong to. The Constitution should be inclusive enough to make sure that everyone, including Persons Living with Disabilities (PWDs) gets a chance. We cannot be inclusive if a portion of our community is left behind in the learning of one language or the other. I join my sister in urging the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the Government to seriously look into this and make allocation for it as early as the next budget. Education is an important sector that gets a lion’s share of the budget and rightly so; it should find room and be allocated more funds so that it continues to grow. I think all of you here except the learned Senator there must have learnt Kiswahili. However, when I was school in the early grades, we had the Beecher Report that stopped the teaching of Kiswahili because it was a unifying language for the Independence freedom fighters. I even had to go and take up Kiswahili lessons to be able to do politics, because I had to speak the language in Dagoretti Constituency. I wonder, if we then exclude some of the people, it means that it will be difficult for them to communicate in certain fields. Every field is open for all people, including PWDs. They will be unable to get jobs in certain places if they cannot communicate in the language which is widely used in Kenya and, indeed, in East Africa. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is also consideration in the international forums to make Kiswahili a language that gets translation, even in places such the United Nations (UN). This shows the importance of Kiswahili language. It is, therefore, urgent and imperative to make it possible for all Kenyans to be able to express themselves in Kiswahili. They will also be able to get a lot of information which comes in the language. We all know that information is power. Missing this is discriminative and very unfair to a very major part of our Nation. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we now integrate PWDs in normal schools. Recently, there was a move by the Starkey Hearing Foundation, which is based in Minnesota, USA. They have given about 50,000 hearing aids in this country and in other countries all over the world. They adopted one school for children with hearing disability in Embu County. After they gave hearing aids to those children, at least almost half could hear. They said that the hearing of a majority of the remaining 50 per cent could be improved with some treatment. That is an area we can follow and recommend, as a Senate, that we get hearing aids by working with such a foundation. The Government or the Ministry can spread this to other schools for the deaf so that more children can be fitted with hearing aids and benefit now from moving to integrated schools, like the one in Embu County. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I attended one of the meetings of Starkey Hearing Foundation where the headmistress also attended. She gave a moving story of how the children reacted when they were able to hear first; she even showed us the pictures. It is, therefore, possible to join up with other people; it can be foundations or even the Government can buy some of these aids, since the foundations cannot give us all the hearing aids. We can put aside some money to invest in these children so that they are checked and fitted with the hearing aids. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}