Day 4: Friday (11/15) Continued! SLTSSA

Friday Continued, 11/15: SLTSSA

Organization Business Plan: SLTSSA

The following information is what I've gathered thus far about SLTSSA, it's structure, services, vision and "business plan." The vision of SLTSSA is for deaf rights to be respected within the community. They identify and support deaf kids by training others to become aware of deaf individuals and their capacity to learn and be part of the community. They also help others in the community learn sign language to be able to communicate them while encouraging others to advocate for them as well.

As I mentioned before the organization is run by the Manager who organizes and overseas the team, activities, policies, administration, and who reports to the Board. There's two main wings under the Manager, Administration side with a finance officer, cashier, and support staff (janitors, drivers, etc). Then there is a projects side. The projects coordinator has two different types of project areas headed by the Education Officer and the Social Worker. The education officer works with the sign language teachers, tutorial programs (tutoring for deaf students), allocating and finding resources, books, materials for deaf students, and inclusive schooling. The Social Worker is in charge of all the community awareness programs. In the past there have been a handful of projects that SLTSSA has created, but most of them get phased out after 5 years.

The first program was "Talk with the Deaf." The program focused on reaching out to the community and those working in basic service areas, and teaching them sign language so they could communicate with the deaf and help them access basic services. This included health care providers, nurses, judges, lawyers, police officers, etc. However, the problem (and I'm sure a problem they continue to have) is that people weren't retaining the information. If those who learn aren't frequently practicing or practicing at all, they won't be able to remember the language when they need it. The second program was "Include the Deaf." They went into sub cities and got sign language training teachers to meet with parents, family members and social service individuals. The third program was "Social Support" program they focused on social work skills and deaf friendly services, it was here where they realized that it was important to intervene in a deaf person's life at an early age specifically below the age of 6. This way they could work with their families from a young age.

The reality of the matter is that most people believe that being deaf (or any disability) is a curse from God, a punishment for their sins. Most parents were embarrassed and would hide their deaf child. They also believe that deaf children are dumb that they can't learn. The manager explained to me that they have the wrong perspective/attitude and they needed to work on awareness especially with families. So their next program, "Early Childhood Intervention" focuses on identifying deaf children under the age of 6. They want to provide training for their families and help the child get education. They help educate and bring awareness about what causes deafness, so that more families will be willing to reveal their deaf child. They also provide classes for families as well as family counseling.

In order to do this they not only use mass media, but they make home visits, school visits, participate in community meetings, speak at health centers, and even have experience programs (where model parents with deaf children talk about their experience and create a supportive community for families). I thought the health center visits were a really interesting way to raise awareness. They call them Morning Sessions, because what they do is go to specific health centers every morning and speak for 20-30 minutes to the group of patients at the health center that are waiting to be treated. They raise awareness about the causes and the preventative measures of deafness. Although these individuals aren't expecting to learn about deaf people, SLTSSA is actually able to identify lots of deaf children this way because their families start to understand that there are services for their child and they aren't just "dumb." This is also a good time to inform these patients of ways they can prevent deafness.

They even have other side activities like sports and arts competitions for students to understand the "can do" attitude and to empower them. I also got to meet Wondimagagn kugna, one of the social workers who leads some of the Morning Sessions. He told me that every week, they plan different meetings and activities in the community that they want to engage in and then they have to report how they did. What were the results? Did they meet their goals? If not, why not? They are always planning ahead. They have been very effective in the past in terms of identifying individuals. They market themselves by trying to be out in the community as much as possible. They make calls and look for opportunities to speak at meetings. They build relationships with individuals and officers that are directly linked to the community. They also work to help schools by training their teachers with sign language.

Wondimagagn! (Although this picture was not taken on my first day, I still wanted to put a face to a name! Plus, as you will find out I spend the majority of my time with him)

Organizational Funding: SLTSSA

The organization is a local organization, however it is solely funded by the Danish organization, Essy International (again not sure on the spelling). The Denmark Church of Christ Mission first came to Ethiopia with a focus on adoption, but saw another need. SLTSSA still has a good relationship with the organization especially since they fund it 100%. However, the manager did tell me that they were looking for others donors, just to be safer. This is probably not the most sustainable model. And I think there are actually a lot of opportunities for SLTSSA to become more independent or just less reliant on the Danish funding by taking a more social entrepreneurship approach especially since they offer so many different programs. They might be able to actually charge for some of the trainings and programs. I think it could be wise to branch out into a larger donor pool as well (although I'm not sure if that would make Essy International uncomfortable and they could take away their funds!) I hope to delve deeper into funds including what types of new money sources are they looking for and are they actually actively looking?! I hope to follow up with more information soon!