Deaf want Government to hear their concerns

Speaking through interpreter Qushiba La Fleur, Tobias said the deaf society is faced with a lot of problems and challenges.

During a press conference at the Diagnostic Research Educational and Therapeutic Centre for the Hearing Impaired (Dretchi) Compound, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain, Tobias lamented that deaf and hard of hearing persons cannot accomplish much due to their low income.

“The deaf cannot find jobs or acquire HDC houses.” Tobias said.

“They search but do not get through. There are problems within the education system when it comes to the deaf and hard of hearing persons.

At Dretchi we want to help the deaf in those areas. Now that we, for the first time, have deaf persons involved on the Board, a lot of deaf people are now seeing and understanding what is the right way, and how the association is going forward.” He continued, “Before the Board had no deaf persons on it, they did not care much about the deaf. Now there are deaf persons on the Board to improve the lives of the deaf.” Tobias indicated that he will like to see Government focus more on deaf, blind and differently- abled persons because even though a deaf person may have gone to school, there are no interpreters at schools, hospitals, police stations, courts and certain businesses to support the deaf, hard of hearing and differently-abled persons.

“Even in the workplace there are no interpreters to support the deaf. The two most common problems deaf persons face on a daily basis are with education and finding jobs.” He said, “When they do find jobs they do not pay much and a deaf person cannot qualify for an HDC home because they have a low income. There need to be more equality when it comes to the deaf and disabled persons.” Also addressing the media, President of TTAHI, Patricia Charles said one of their main goals for 2017 is that TTHAI becomes an employment agency for the deaf and the hard of hearing.

“There are a lot of deaf and hard of hearing people working in different fields but, as things are currently constituted, they are generally confined to a certain kind of job,” Charles said.

“We are hoping that with our involvement we can place more deaf and hard of hearing people in jobs and hopefully in better jobs. Another area we plan to work on is the improvement of our deliverables and to implement continuation classes for school leavers.” Charles indicated that through a survey, they found that at the school leaving level, many of the students need more assistance to improve their qualifications.