Cape Town - About 120 pupils and tertiary students were exposed to careers and higher education opportunities at the Deaf Open Day held at the Sanlam Building in Bellville today.
They attended the first-of-its-kind career exhibition, which focused mainly on the deaf community nationwide as part of commemorating September as Deaf Awareness Month.
It was hosted by the Deaf Federation of South Africa, with the aim to bridge the gap between deaf and hearing people.
The event entailed speeches by representatives of various stakeholders and presentations by the 17 institutions.
Organiser Jabaar Mohamed, from DeafSA, said it was time that information was shared and for deaf people to know they were not only limited “to be interpreters or sign languages teachers. You are capable of doing whatever everyone else can do. Let’s get out of that box and live our dreams. This is a huge success for us and a start of the greatness we want to achieve for our people.”
Bruno Druchen said the exhibition was one step towards achieving their goals of having sign language acknowledged as a 12th official language.
“Currently, we are proud that the Western Cape was the first to officiate the language in its legislature, but we still need to lobby the eight other provinces. We will continue to engage with the parliamentary legislature, and initiatives like these create awareness and broaden the importance of having it recognised,” he said.
Among the exhibitors was Lesego Modutle, UCT’s disability advocacy specialist and South African sign language interpreter, who thanked DeafSA for creating a platform to equip and show that the deaf are equal and are catered for at various institutions. She said it was a phenomenal initiative that needed to be driven forward to ensure a prosperous future for deaf youths.
The Western Cape Education Department warmly welcomed the initiative, with Professor Sigamoney Naicker saying that over the past couple of years they had been working closely with DeafSA to promote equal and accessible education for all. He said the deaf community had previously been marginalised and received little support, but that was gradually changing and, as with most other challenged groups, the initiative was now gaining strength to strive for a better future for all.
Pupils hailing from six local schools and higher institution students were thrilled by the amount of knowledge they acquired. Andiswa Dyantyi from the College of Cape Town said: “It’s exciting for me. I have never been to a career expo before. Today I realised I can do more than I imagined and that I am no different. It’s so inspiring. I am grateful DeafSA made this possible for us and hopefully it won’t just end with us, as there are many out there who need the inspiration and knowledge.”