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August 09, 2005
Dear JICA Friends-Julius Mxajwe
Dear JICA Friends
I am exremely excited to have been one of the JICA trainees in 2001.
The knowledge gained in this enterprising project has assisted South African
Deaf community a great deal and, as a result,
the Deaf Federation of South Africa now has a project running,
under the title: Deaf Independent Living Programme, acronymed DILP.
This project has provided employment for 6 Deaf people and 3 South
African Sign Language Interpreters, all of whom work under DILP and all
of whom are full time and salaried employees.
Project description:
DILP is a community based program aimed at empowering Deaf people and
their families at grassroots level by giving them the knowledge, skills,
confidence, and authority to take decisions about issues affecting them
by:
- Making information available to them on Deafnessas a human rights
issue, as well as on making social services such as rehabilitation,
education and training, employment etc, available;
- Providing peer support and family counselling to, first of all,
empower a Deaf person and then to raise awarness within the community in
order to reduce discriminatory attitudes;
- Referring Deaf people to relevant health, rehabilitation, education
and employment services for assessment and intervention;
- Addressing discriminatory attitudes and stereotypical beliefs about
Deaf people within the community to promote social intergration and
mental health of Deaf people;
- Assisting Deaf people at grassroots level to identify themselves as a
cultural entity within the broader society and to educate them to take
responsibility for their own destiny.
The program is funded by the Department of Social Development
(Government) and the National Lottery Disrtibution Fund (NLDF).
Histoically, the project originates in Japan while I was attendin a
Leadership training course for persons with Disabilities under the
auspices of JICA in 2001.
Ironically, this project was an assignement I had to do as required
by the training course while in Japan and I never thought
it would be such a big and successful project.
The idea came as a result of my visit to various
Independent Living Centres in Japan throughout the training course.
I thought to my self that if the Japanese can do it,
then South Africans can also do it!
The experience is wonderful.
Thank u for the broad knowledge impacted upon me.
Julius
Posted by jicafriends at August 9, 2005 10:17 AM