Visit to schools in Mukono

Post for June 18, 2018

---

We drove to Mukono today and might have bought a few too many snacks on the way there.

We visited two schools. The first was a public school and the teacher to student ratio was surprising; most were over 100 students per teacher. There was also a university student volunteering his time as support staff in the class room. As the teacher lectured, he would interpret with sign language for the class. It was an interesting visit because it was a mixed-learning school so only some of the students were deaf. These children would sit together so that the support teacher only had to face one direction.

It was kind of funny because the children gave us sign-names. My sign name was shown by twisting my pointer finger on the side of my nose. I also learned to introduce myself using sign language. Each new class we visited, we introduced ourselves. It made the class laugh to see my sign-name and we had thought it was because it looked like picking a nose. However, Mrs. Deborah told us later that it actually meant ‘boring’ and that’s why the children would laugh.

The next was a private boarding school called Bishop West Primary School and is also a mixed-learning school. It is entirely funded by school fees and the Church of Uganda. It is one of the first schools to use computers and projectors to aid learning for those with speech, hearing, or visual impairments. This school was much smaller with a total of 103 students, but they cited some of the same challenges as the public school: not enough special education teachers, high poverty levels, and delays at home.

We ended the day with a walk and going over a communication board about bartering for a tailor. We had an initial idea that needed adjusting. It was a step-by-step process where the customer would choose the type of service they wanted then they could negotiate over the material and cost if needed. Our first prototype was with cards with money amounts written on them. It was then decided that it was best to keep the information on one page together, rather on separate cards. Another challenge was trying to find a way around any possible illiteracy.

This is much more difficult than what I had expected with so many factors to consider.