Jan 2024 - Parent Workshops

Huge gratitude to our incredible supporters for making parent workshops possible! 

For many pupils, maintaining communication with their families can be a challenge. After holidays, they may return to school having lost some signing skills due to lack of practice at home. With your generous support, we're able to continue providing the invaluable gift of communication to pupils and parents. 

Aug 2023

Lydia interprets during a guidance and counselling session.

June 2023 - A Welcome and Goodbye

Welcome to our newest sponsored worker, Proscovia, an experienced Deaf teacher who joins Lydia at Kyomya! Check out a photo of her here getting right into action.

We wish all the best to Juliet, a previous sponsored worker who has recently moved on, for all her fantastic work since joining us way back in 2014!

July 2022 - New Trustees

2022 sees the welcoming of 5 new trustees - Cheryl, Dawn, Becky, Tama and Beth! We are excited to maintain a diverse trustee board with varied backgrounds, skills and experiences. Check out our 'Patron and Trustees' page to find out more.

March 2021 - BSL Appeal

A video in British Sign Language explaining the impact of school closures on Deaf children living in isolated areas of Jinja, what JD does and, most importantly, how you can help! A very special thank you to Salome for interpreting.

August 2020 - Urgent Appeal

We urgently need your help. Covid-19 has affected us all, but those with the least are often the hardest hit. The impact has been severe for the families of the deaf children we work with. Most depend on daily earnings from street trading and have lost their entire income overnight with no government support available. Many are now struggling to pay for food, basic healthcare or even burial costs where devastatingly, lives have been lost.

We have already provided some additional funds to deliver materials to homes, but we need to take immediate action to support families through this current crisis so that when schools reopen, they are still able to afford to send their deaf children back into the classrooms.

100% of donations go directly to our causes, so the difference every donation makes, no matter how big or small, cannot be overstated.

Please donate and share this post to ensure families that were already struggling to stay afloat are not pulled under by this crisis.

Click here to donate

June 2020 - Home Learning During Lockdown

Our sponsored workers and friends at OPDC have been very busy supporting home learning during the lockdown.

They've motorcycled to the homes of all pupils to deliver reading materials and workbooks, checking in on families and encouraging them to continue supporting the student's learning in such difficult times.

We're hugely grateful to them, and our supporters, for making this grant possible! ​

March 2020 - Impact of Covid-19

​On March 15th, the Ugandan Government announced the closure of all schools. Many of our deaf children are boarders, so they were sent home to their villages. Trustees considered whether it was possible to find ways to support the children’s education during school closure. However, the terms of the lockdown are very restrictive with all transport and travel banned. The impact on many families will be severe. Most depend upon daily earning which is not possible during the lockdown. In urban settings most people live in small one or two room houses in close proximity to each other. The concept of social isolation is impossible to achieve for many people. Access to health care is limited by availability and cost.

The Government has announced that schools will re-open as soon as possible. We will continue to monitor the situation and respond as best we can. We have provided some additional funds to allow materials to be delivered to the homes of the deaf children so they can continue some of their educational activities. Our sponsored workers are still supported financially by Jinja DEAF (JD) and so will be ready to begin working as soon as the schools reopen.
 
We are very grateful if you are able to help support the students further at this uncertain time.

​Please make a donation here.

March 2020

​More photos with thanks to David, Emma and Sebastian.

 5 Feb 2020 - New School Building in Jinja

Images courtesy of Sebastian from OPDC show Charles helping out in laying foundations for a new deaf school which OPDC are planning. Charles received Jinja DEAF sponsorship to complete the end of Secondary Education and is currently awaiting results to know whether he can go on to university or teacher training.

May 2019 - William Patten International Fundraising Evening

William Patten Primary School in London hosted an International Evening to fundraise for Jinja Deaf. The pupils showcased their many talents including New York 'Annie' themed gymnastics, New Zealand ukulele songs, Caribbean steel pans and these fearsome fencers. Photos thanks to Emma.

April 2019 - Walakuba West Short Film

​Jinja DEAF trustees Emma and Dom went to Uganda for a self funded family trip with their son Ronnie and daughter Alisa. They were able to also spend two weeks in Jinja visiting our sponsored staff at the schools and seeing the support work run by our local partner OPDC.
 
The children were very interested by the differences and similarities they saw. They were interested that the sign language used in the UK, British Sign Language (BSL) is different from the language they use (Ugandan Sign Language) and they were interested to learn that the deaf pupils at Frank Barnes all travel to school every day in buses or taxis, some for an hour or more, instead of boarding at school.
 
Some of the pupils at Walukuba West then recorded an introduction to their school and neighbourhood, which was edited into a short film by a volunteer in London, Azeem Mustafa.
 
The children at Kyomya also helped film a tour of their school and village, which will hopefully be edited in due course.

15 March 2019 - William Patten School Fun Run Fundraiser

​81 families, including 134 primary school children, made it round Clissold Park, London in their pyjamas today and enjoyed a colourful cake sale to raise an amazing £1,546 (7.3 million UGX) for Jinja DEAF.
​
A huge thank you to all the parents, staff and children involved!

March 2019 - Partnership with OPDC

This year, we entered into an exciting new partnership with Organisation of Parents with Deaf Children (OPDC) to act as our representative in Jinja. They have been an invaluable source of information to us as Trustees and also in supporting us recognise and tackle challenges faced by pupils, parents and sponsored workers.

In 2014, we collaborated with a Soft Power Education to deliver our first Ugandan Sign Language workshops for parents.  For many parents this was not only their first opportunity to learn to communicate with their children more fully, it was also their first opportunity to get to know other parents in the same situation.  Some enthusiastic and motivated participants then went on to found their own support group: OPDC.

OPDC has done some wonderful work advocating for the needs, rights and potential of deaf children.  They have even been on local radio, using a medium which is widely accessed even in remote rural areas without electricity. 

Thanks to the Jinja DEAF funded program, each of Jinja's 12 subcounties now has an OPDC 'Parent Support Link'.  These Parent Support Links are parents who have committed to reaching out to other parents with deaf children in their area and co-ordinating a local self-help group at the sub-county level.  This is a great achievement in a culture which has traditionally considered having a deaf child as something to be ashamed of and hidden away.

We are therefore very proud to continue our longstanding collaboration!

13 Dec 2018 - William Patten Primary School Christmas Carols Concert

We have an exciting new partnership with William Patten Primary School in East London. They've already raised an incredible £868 for Jinja DEAF at their Christmas Concert. 

We're very excited that you've exchanged photos and questions with our schools in Jinja, put on special assemblies and shows, and even recently made sign language your "language of the month".

What a fabulous start to the schools' partnership project!

Dec 2018 - Crafts and More at Kyomya Primary School

Photos courtesy of Juliet taken throughout the year.

Nov 2018 - Christmas Wishes

Photo courtesy of Victoria at Walukuba West Primary School, Jinja with a special message written on the blackboard for our partner William Patten School, London.

March 2018 - "The Silent Child" wins Best Short Film Oscar

Set in rural England and Inspired by real life events, The Silent Child film centres around a profoundly deaf four year old girl named Libby who is born into a middle class family and lives in a world of silence until a caring social worker teaches her the gift of communication. 

An insightful short story, inspired by real life events, observing one of the loneliest disabilities and the avoidable struggles that deaf children face. Find out more here.
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