Nairobi, 11 April 2006 - Hearing-impaired children in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, now have reason to enjoy a normal ‎childhood, thanks to the opening of the country's first and only school for students with hearing ‎difficulties. ‎

‎"For many families, our school is the only one - not only in Mogadishu, but throughout the country - ‎that offers normal classes to their children," said Usman Muhammad Mahamud, the school's director, ‎on Tuesday. ‎

Mahamud, who recently returned from South Africa after completing his university education, said he ‎became aware of the need for such a school after he saw neighbours' hearing-impaired children. "It is ‎heartbreaking to see a six-year-old deaf child standing at the doorstep, watching his or her siblings ‎going off to school, while they have nowhere to go but play around in the sand," he said. ‎

Mahamud, along with other Somalis from abroad, decided to open a school that catered to hearing- ‎impaired children. The demand for a place at the school "has been amazing," he said. "Almost all the ‎children in the school would never have had the opportunity to go to school. You should see them. ‎They are so eager and happy to be in school. The school has opened doors they never dreamed of." ‎

The students are now interacting with others through sign language. "We have a few hearing students, ‎and we make it compulsory that they also learn sign language," he said. "We even have adults coming ‎to the school to learn sign language." ‎

However, as the number of students has increased, Mahamud has been faced with the challenge of ‎finding more teachers with the appropriate training. There is already a general shortage of teachers in ‎Somalia, because very few new teachers had entered the profession in the last 15 years. "It is proving ‎very difficult to find ones able to teach deaf children," he said. ‎

The school should be expanded to take more children, "but at the moment we do not have the ‎capacity," he said. "Up to now, we have been sustained by support from the parents and the odd ‎businessman." The parents barely have the means to sustain their families, let alone finance a school. ‎He feared that economic hardship and a lack of government support would hinder the school's ‎progress. ‎

Mahamud has appealed to Somali well wishers in the diaspora and the international community "to ‎help the school help this most neglected group." The school also needs educational material for the ‎hearing impaired, computers and "help with training teachers and expanding the classrooms," he said.

Source: IRIN