Een hoopvolle toekomst
voor dove kinderen in Uganda
Een hoopvolle toekomst voor dove kinderen in Uganda
A deaf child deserves the chance to receive a good education.
With your help, she can once again dream of a hopeful future.
Deaf children in Uganda often don’t attend school. Their families and society frequently view them as inferior—or even as a curse. As a result, mothers of deaf children are often left to cope on their own. Deafness is also more common in financially vulnerable families, as they have limited access to healthcare.
At Signs of Hope, we want to show these children and their families that they are deeply loved and valued—by both God and people. We give them the opportunity to go to school and receive a quality education. At school, they not only learn standard subjects, but also the language that is fully accessible to them: sign language. This way, these children are given a chance at a hopeful future.
We do this by sponsoring deaf children, actively engaging in deaf education, and working toward the establishment of a new school for the deaf.
Yonah was born with blue eyes. In Uganda, that often leads to a quick conclusion: he must be cursed. Later, it becomes clear that he is also deaf. For his father, that is reason enough to leave the family. A child with a disability, he says, cannot possibly be his.
His mother is now on her own with three children. She works in a small restaurant, earning less than one euro a day.
The other children move in with their grandparents and attend a low-cost village school.
But for Yonah, as a deaf boy, there is no solution—no school, no future in sight.
When he is just nine years old, Signs of Hope comes into Yonah’s life. A sponsor is found, and Yonah’s adventure can begin! At last, he is allowed to go to school!
At school, Yonah quickly learns sign language. Now he can communicate with the people around him. And in class, he’s doing very well. By the end of the year, he is the best in the entire class!
Yonah’s mother says, “Thanks to Signs of Hope, I see a bright future for my son.”
To provide more deaf children with education in sign language, we are building a new school.
The first phase of construction has now begun! We are drilling for water, putting up a fence around the property, building an access road, and installing a welcoming entrance gate. A small house will also be built for the security guards. Once that’s done, we’ll begin constructing the classrooms.
The local government is very supportive of our initiative. They, too, recognize the difficult circumstances these children and their families face. Thanks to this new school, more deaf children will have the opportunity to build a hopeful future.
We support deaf children in their education by covering their school fees, maintaining contact with their families, and actively contributing to their learning. We also oversee the construction and launch of the new school for the deaf, so that we can provide more deaf children with a quality education in the future.
Signs of Hope is a Christian organization. We believe that God cares for every person, including these deaf children in Uganda. We believe that, on behalf of God, we are called to share His love with these children and their families, and to bear witness to Him through our work. We welcome all deaf children, regardless of their faith or background.
In Uganda, Famke Wildeman (Dutch) and Dorothy Ajete (Ugandan) are the driving forces behind putting the vision of Signs of Hope into practice. In the Netherlands, our board and a team of volunteers work to support the efforts in Uganda and ensure the funding is in place to make this work possible.