Campaign on rights of the deaf launched

Mwanza. The Tanzania Association for the Deaf (Chavita) has launched an awareness campaign for educating government officials on basic human rights of people with hearing impairment.

The campaign, which will be held in Mwanza, Arusha and Morogoro regions, aims at ensuring the people with hearing impairment are involved in formulating government policies and helping them to monitor and implement government development activities.

Ward executive officers, local leaders and civil servants from district councils will participate in the awareness campaign.

It will help the people with hearing impairment enjoy their basic human rights.

This was said last week by Chavita gender officer Lupi Maswanya during the launch of a two-year education campaign funded by the Civil Foundation Society at Sh160 million. More than 600,000 people in the country have hearing impairment, according to the National Policy on Disability (NDP), 2004.

Chavita country public relations officer Msafiri Mhando said the campaign would also help the people with hearing impairment to understand that they were citizens of this country and were protected by the law as any other citizen in society. “Their abilities are overlooked, their capacities are underestimated and their needs are not given priority,” he noted. Mr Mhando said time had come for the government and nongovernmental organisations, including media houses to use interpreters for the deaf to ensure they were included in development activities