Story by John Nhandara
BELATED commemorations of the International Day of Sign Language were held this Saturday in Harare, with the key takeaways being the need to bridge communication barriers and raise awareness of the importance of sign language.
Institutions have been called upon to embrace sign language to bridge communication barriers.
“It’s a day we raise awareness about the need to uphold the rights of deaf people in the country,” said Zimbabwe Deaf Women’s director, Lovemore Chidemo.
“Education for sign language must be everywhere for example, in hospitals and police stations and so forth,” Zimbabwe National Association of the Deaf Administrator, Maria Muwani said.
Stakeholders highlighted the need to consider sign language as a mandatory subject in schools.
University of Zimbabwe Lecturer, Tawanda Matende SAID, “At the University of Zimbabwe, we teach sign language because we have seen how important it is in the communication process.”
The belated commemorations were held under the theme ‘Sign up for sign language rights’.
Sign language is one of the country’s 16 official languages.
