Rima, Shireen and Samir: 3 Optimistic Hearing-Impaired Teachers

By: Dua’a Abed

Rima, Shireen and Samir are hearing-impaired teachers working at Palestine Red Crescent Society’ (PRCS) Special Education Kindergarten in Al Amal City – Ability Development & Rehabilitation Center (Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip). Despite their disabilities, they have succeeded in life and realized their dream to live a decent life, be part of society, benefit from their communities and provide services to their fellow disabled persons.
 

Sign language, or the alphabet of fingers, is the only means through which they communicate with other people, whether hearing-impaired or not. They have made the impossible come true and challenged all those who say that hearing-impaired persons are incapable of communicating with their peers.
 

The three of them were born with a hearing impairment, even though none of their parents suffered from this disability. All three of them learned at PRCS’ Ability Development & Rehabilitation Center which includes a pre-school, a kindergarten, a school, a section for mental disabilities and another for vocational training as well as production workshops and an assistive services section which covers physiotherapy, speech and hearing therapy as well as psychological and social workers. The Center also comprises a section dedicated to extracurricular activities and a Child Club which offers activities and programs for local community children.

Signs of Distinction
Rima al Farra (28), who was a precocious child, says she enrolled in many associations throughout her life. Then when the Ability Development & Rehabilitation Center was inaugurated in Khan Younis, she enrolled in its embroidery section then took several courses in order to become a teacher’s assistant at the PRCS kindergarten. Rima, who lives in Khan Younis, says she got married three years ago to her colleague in the Center, Noor, who is also hearing-impaired. The secret behind their smile lies in the fact that they are defying all their surroundings, thanks to what Rima terms a “divine intervention”.

Communicating with Talent
Shireen Zu’rob (28) says she joined the PRCS Center at the age of 14, where she learned sign language, then embroidery and tailoring. When it became apparent that she could communicate very easily with children, she started working as a teacher’s assistant in the kindergarten, alongside Rima.
 

When you enter the classroom and see how Rima and Shireen teach hearing impaired children, it is as if you have walked into two silent movies: five children under the age of six sit learning in a classroom whose walls are covered with educational drawings as well as a board. The wall behind the pupils is covered with a mirror so that the teacher can gesture with her hands to draw the attention of those students not paying attention to her.
 

Reema started explaining today’s science lesson. Total silence prevailed with neither teacher nor pupils making any sound, but moving their hands to express themselves.
 

In another classroom, teacher Samir was teaching four other pupils the alphabet in sign language as well as a number of easy words such as mother, father, sister, brother, grandfather and grandmother.
 

Samir Abou Sbitan (32) says he was enrolled in several centers for the hearing-impaired till the 9th grade, then returned in 1994 from Egypt to the Gaza Strip at the age of 15 when he enrolled in the PRCS Center, then worked at a carpenter’s workshop. Then he moved to the Open Studio Section at the Center where he learned how to implement extracurricular activities that help disabled children and their peers express their feelings. “The Center’s staff noticed my skills in handling children and appointed me as a teacher’s assistant in the center’s kindergarten. I am very happy around children: every day I gain teaching experience as I teach children under the age of six sign language and a few words, little by little”, he said.
 

Rima has two children while Samir has four of them, all healthy and non-disabled. Rima communicates with her kids who are both under 3 through lip reading and sign language. “My daughter who is 15 months old communicates with me through a basic kind of sign language. When she is hungry she points to her mouth and I understand”, she says. Rima’s mother helps her teach the little ones to speak, and Rima believes that using sign language this early with her kids will make them communicate more easily with her later on in life.
 

As for Samir, he is married to his cousin who is not hearing-impaired and teaches their children to speak. Samir, however, taught his kids sign language so he can communicate with them and help his wife raise them.
 

Through its Center in the Gaza Strip, PRCS aims at helping the hearing-impaired, ensuring they live in dignity, rehabilitating them and helping them cope with their surrounding environment as well as integrating them in society so they obtain their full rights.

Communication
The capacity to communicate is a key issue on which those working to help the hearing-impaired focus a lot as it can hinder integration in society and limit their impact on their communities. Communication in this case is ensured in a non-verbal way, i.e. through sign language, as a means to break the wall of silence and isolation created by the loss of the capacity to hear.
 

I wanted to learn more about how the hearing-impaired communicate and how they move around in their cities without any help. How do they handle their children? All of them said: we do all that “normally”. None of them felt that their disability hinders communications in their own way, through sign language. “If people do not understand, then we write down what we want, or we use the internet and social networks. We have friends and we use sms’s to communicate”, they said.
 

As for moving around, they all have in their wallets small pieces of paper on which they write the names of the places where they usually go, like Al Amal City (PRCS) or their home addresses.
 

Through its Ability Development & Rehabilitation Program, PRCS aims at integrating disabled persons in their communities by developing their capacities and giving them equal opportunities. More than 10% of PRCS staff in this program are persons with special needs. They help build the capacities of other individuals suffering from the same disability.