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{
    "id": 799916,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/799916/?format=api",
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    "content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, I vehemently support. Not only are you denying them the opportunity to be able to learn and hear in Kiswahili, English is not spoken everywhere in Kenya. When you go to church, I am sure they also want to listen to the Holy Scriptures from the Bible. In my own Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) church where I go for Sabbath on Saturday, we have a special unit of people who do translation to people with hearing disability; whether in kindergarten, during lesson study and the holy hour or divine service. There are people who have been trained in sign language and they equally pass the message of the hour from the pastors or whoever preaches to the young ones with hearing disabilities. Therefore if we do not include this in the curriculum, we will be denying them the spiritual aspect of life that is so important in the development of a growing child. Secondly, we will be denying them the aspect of attaining the utmost knowledge in life. Thirdly, we will be denying them the ability to develop elements that are important particular if they have a predilection towards the vocational training events. They are not able to make the two ends meet. I must say that for us to handle this there is an element of humaneness and we must be humane. I am not saying that we should sympathise but we should be humane. These are very important members of our society and they perform well. It is even worse and complicated when you have a combination of deaf and dumb. I have seen a member of my church who has learnt many useful things to do. During Christmas, we do not have to go and do other shopping because through intuition he has been able to learn a lot. What is even more encouraging is that his own son is now a holder of a degree from the University of Nairobi and that is interesting because they have taken learning as an important element. That is the spiritual aspect of it that we will deny them if they cannot access Kiswahili Language particularly in Sabbath schools or Sunday schools where Kiswahili is used a medium of communication. The other issue is that they cannot discuss with their own peers on events of the day because they have already been cut off from the rest of the world. I do not know whether the debate on social media is in Kiswahili. With the new ICT levels, if you cannot access that information, that is what we call total exclusion. So, there is no element of inclusivity in whatever we are trying to do in educational establishments. I vehemently urge that after this Motion has been dealt with and concluded, the relevant Ministry should not even wait for further prompting. They should pick it up as an element that needs to be added as an addendum to ongoing piloting scheme, so that they can carry it on because they have the manpower in place. I know that because we have enough trained people who can carry up the pilot. They have also been trained in the curriculum that has been developed to be piloted in our schools. With those few remarks, I thank Sen. (Dr.) Musuruve for this very forward- looking Motion which will help the children with hearing disabilities to access Kiswahili which is a national language. I support this Motion."
}