Class IV student Janvi Dubey of DAV Public School, Bistupur, knows that saying “thank you” and “sorry” is a sign of good manners. What’s more, she knows to say them in the Indian sign language.
No, Janvi is not hearing-impaired. But her school has ensured that she and other children like her grow up with a sense of empathy for the specially abled.
DAV has teamed up with tea parlour La Gravitea that employs 14 speech-and-hearing-impaired youths, to enable students to communicate with the hearing impaired. In a first of its kind initiative, the school has painted one of its walls with the English alphabet in the Indian sign language and a couple of gestures too. This lets students register the signs visually so that they start learning how to communicate through sign language.
Principal Pragya Singh, teachers, students, and La Gravitea owner Avinash Dugar and four of his hearing-impaired employees were present on Tuesday when the wall was inaugurated.
Principal Singh said that they intended to paint more sign-language gestures on various campus walls so that teachers, staff and students learn sign language naturally.
“It’s high time that we make education more inclusive and sensitive. Children do not know sign language and so can’t communicate with the hearing-impaired. But if the sign language is right in front of them, they will,” Singh said.
Singh said that the school will plan more activities, especially for primary school students, who will grow up learning the sign language.
Owner of La Gravitea Dugar said he had employed speech-and-hearing-impaired people in his tea parlour because it was important that they earn their livelihood and interact with the mainstream.
Congratulating DAV for the wall, Dugar said: “I am thankful to the DAV school management. I now have the confidence to approach other schools for similar gestures. If kids know sign language, they will treat the hearing-impaired with respect and not as objects of pity.”
Dugar has a point. Janvi said she’d definitely like to learn the sign language. “It will be fun to talk in a new way,” she said.
