Hello, welcome to the section that features you (the NGO) and highlights how you have been contributing to global peace and development! This month, we are joined by Daniel Lanthier, the Director of Family Education Services Foundation, Pakistan. Pakistan Sign Language (PSL), created by the Deaf Reach program of FESF, won the P@SHA Awards for Inclusion & Education in Nov 2014. Daniel shares with us how FESF has made an impact on the deaf people in Pakistan through its different programs.
What inspired the establishment of your NGO?
Family Education Services Foundation was started by like-minded foreign educators who had been working in Pakistan in an independent capacity, some since 1984. With aspirations to offer greater services in capacity building for education, FESF formalized its activities in 2002. A foundational goal of FESF is to provide educational services and build capacity in some of the most neglected sectors of Pakistan’s society.
What is special about your organization?
To fulfill these objectives, FESF currently administers the following two key programs.
Deaf Reach Program:
There are over 1.25 million deaf children in Pakistan, yet less than 2% attend school!
The DRP is unique in providing multi-level access to education, skills training and employment, through Pakistan’s only branch network of schools for the Deaf. Presently, seven Deaf Reach Schools and Training Centersare serving more than 1,000 students and their families in both urban and rural areas. Additionally, a branch Center is operational in Adana, Turkey.
The DRP not only focuses on academic education, but its holistic approach includes: Marketable skills training, Parent Training, Teacher Development, Job placement, Income generation, andPakistan Sign Language (PSL) development. There is a 45% female enrolment in all DR Schools
The DRP is unique in that over 50% of the teaching staff is Deaf. High achieving graduates are trained and provided a career pathway in the field of Deaf Education.
Technology-based resources enhance learning for the Deaf. Computers andmedia are used extensively in the classroom; All learn IT skills in touch-typing, MS Office, web and graphic design, and a new “Code Ear” program introducing coding to deaf students has been recently implemented.
Pakistan Sign Language (PSL) Resources launched : For the first time in Pakistan, Deaf Reach created an open-access PSL Digital Lexicon of 5,000 signed word videos with voice-overs in Urdu and English. Available countrywide via a Web Portal, Phone app, DVD, and a printed book – the PSL Lexicon greatly aids in language acquisition and improving literacy, especially benefiting deaf female students unable to attend school. Soon coming additions will include Signed Stories and Tutorials – particularly relevant for distance learning or for children without school access.
The Job Placement Program provided 500+ jobs in the past 3 years. Via a unique income generation program, products made by Deaf artisans sponsor tuition of deaf students. Skills training includes: IT, Tailoring, Stitching, Cosmetology, Nutrition, Fine Arts, Teacher Training, and PSL Interpretation.
The Motivated Volunteer Empowerment (MOVE) Program
The MOVE Program effects social change by developing youth to become leaders in their communities. Lively training sessions and hands-on volunteer work instill self-confidence in the attendees, who learn to identify the needs in their communities and implement innovative solutions through social action projects.
MOVE provides them with the impetus, skills and experiential learning to make a lasting difference in the lives of the participants and the beneficiaries they impact upon.
Why is your organization important to the community you work in?
DRP: Over 65% of Pakistan’s population live in rural areas, where there currently exists no access to basic education for the Deaf, let alone specialized education or vocational programs to prepare them for gainful employment. For deaf female students, socio-cultural constraints limit access to education and the workplace. Poverty and lack of awareness further exacerbate the problem.
90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents, and live in a hearing world isolated from other deaf peers. When they join Deaf Reach Schools, it is the end of their loneliness, and the beginning of a learning opportunity, as they meet others who use their native language – which is Pakistan Sign Language.
Via the Parent Training program, for the first time in their lives parents have a chance to learn to comminucate with their deaf children. Each school holds sessions fortnightly, with all parents of children attending.
The results have been astounding, with thousands of Deaf students receiving an education, mastering sign language, learning marketable skills, gaining employment, building families, and becoming truly enabled. The sense of purpose, fulfillment and belonging have brought profound change to their lives.
MOVE: Ask any young person in Pakistan, “What can we do to change things for the better?” and you will likely get an impassioned response. Pakistani Youth are motivated and have many ideas for positive change in their communities – but the oft-missing ingredient is for them to know “how and where” to start.
The MOVE program provided this needed stimulus to over 700 participants in 2014 who were given the opportunity to implement their ideas via a social action venture in service to their communities.
What is your NGOs vision for the world?
All Deaf children can excel and live productive lives – they simply need the opportunity for an education. Our vision for the coming years is to liaise with the public and private sectors to replicate the Deaf Reach model in other areas of Pakistan and the developing world where such programs are sorely needed. Via public media platforms, FESF is also very active in advocacy and public awareness campaigns for people with disabilities and in promoting voluntarism amongst youth. It is our hope that these two successful programs, Deaf Reach and MOVE, will be emulated by other organizations in Pakistan and around the world – building capacity in those who can in turn enable others.
