Islamabad: (Parliament Times) Pakistan’s population in 2017 was an approximate 197 million. Out of this, more than 1 million children in the country are hearing impaired. From this figure, less than 5 percent of these children have access to education.
As per the World Health Organization (WHO) A person who is not able to hear as well as someone with normal hearing – hearing thresholds of 25 dB or better in both ears – is said to have hearing loss.’Deaf’ people mostly have profound hearing loss, which implies very little or no hearing. They often use sign language for communication.
In Pakistan, there is only one branch network of schools which extends into rural areas of Sindh and Punjab and provides education, free of cost, to deaf children. The Deaf Reach Program was established twenty-two years ago by Richard and Heidi Geary. The program not only focuses on providing education and skills training for children and youth, it also works towards the development of teachers and interpreters while the award-winning Pakistan Sign Language program has been established for parents and communities.
Currently, there are around 1,500 students who are studying and learning practical life skills in the seven campuses established in Lahore, Jhelum, Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Nawabshah and TandoAllahyar. Along with providing the children quality education, the program also aims to provide the children with healthy meals. Among the multitude of life skills taught to the students, the program also has a Culinary Arts Department, under which the youth are provided training in the culinary arts and baking.
In order to be able to meet the nutritional requirements of the children, the program provides milk to the students, as a part of their healthy meal. For the past 15 consecutive years, Millac Foods has been helping the Deaf Reach Program fulfill its milk requirements by providing milk powder and milk sacksFOC to the school which are distributed and used in all campuses in Sindh.
The milestones reached by the program depicts a true testimony of what is possible when people are provided with the right support. Two of their 16-year-old students were given a residential scholarship to the American School for the Deaf, Hartford, CT, USA, while Rabia Aslam, a Deaf Reach College student, was chosen as country representative to the Global Disability Summit held in London back in 2018. The Deaf Reach Program also developed the Pakistan Sign Language (PSL) digital learning resources which was announced the winner of the prestigious Wise Award 2018.
The support provided to the organization by Millac Foods serves as an example that assistance to non-government organizations do not necessarily always have to be in the form of monetary funds. Organizations, such as this one, require a lot more aid in order to carry out the work they are doing in Pakistan.