Gallaudet team presents at conference on aid to deaf communities in developing nations

Dr. Amy Wilson, an assistant professor in Educational Foundations and Research, and Nickson Kakiri, a World Deaf Leadership scholar, presented a seminar, "Improving Overseas Development Assistance to Deaf Communities in Developing Countries," at the third online Supporting Deaf People (SDP) conference. The March 10 to 16 conference was organized by Direct Learn, a United Kingdom - based consulting and developing firm specializing in information and learning technology, deafness, and disability.

SPD3 is aimed at individuals and organizations that support deaf people, and deaf people themselves, according to promotional material for the conference. A total of 19 speakers representing educational, social science, interpretation, literary, business, and development disciplines presented discussions on international and national support for development in deaf-related areas.

The online conference attracted a large representation of participants from developing countries - Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Zambia, and the Philippines, to name a few.

According to their presentation paper, Wilson and Kakiri posited that deaf people in developing countries need to be given the opportunity to "voice their needs and desires to the Christian church groups and development organizations from other countries who offer the deaf community material, spiritual, or financial assistance."

To support their position, Kakiri and Wilson, with approval from Gallaudet’s Institutional Review Board, studied 23 deaf women and 55 deaf men in Kenya. They interviewed them on their knowledge of aid organizations, barriers to development, and positive changes that have resulted from organizational aid. These questions revealed cross - cultural challenges and highlighted some problems in the delivery of aid. (For example, the Kenyan Deaf community said aid money often went to foreign aid workers rather than to the community.)

According to Kakiri, "Many people logged in to read our paper, and we got quite a lot of feedback on our position.”