Ten previously unemployed deaf youth are about to be given new hope for the future after embarking on an internationally certified IT training course which will give them key skills for employability.
The 10 will receive their Microsoft Certified Application Specialist training from two deaf trainers, Kabelo Moloi and Nandipha Jongizulu, who are employed by the Johannesburg-based Employ & Empower Deaf (eDeaf), an entrepreneurial service provider to the deaf community in South Africa.
The training will enable them to go on to careers as IT specialists or data capturers - a field in which eDeaf director Jesse Kotze believes the deaf are without peer.
Moloi and Jongizulu were part of a group of 10 deaf people who received Microsoft IT Academy Training earlier this year at local training company CTU, thanks to a grant from Microsoft SA's Student2Business programme. A key element of this project is the fact that deaf people are now empowered - and internationally certified - to train other deaf people without the need for a sign language interpreter.
eDeaf, which is the first Microsoft IT Academy in the world focused on the differently-abled community, is currently attempting to find employment for the other eight graduates. The deaf are among the most marginalised communities in South Africa, with an estimated 65%-70% unemployment rate, says Kotze.
“Because of the fact that deaf people cannot communicate freely with the hearing world, they are often regarded as incompetent or not intelligent, and not fit to be employed. This is far from the truth!” said Kotze. “Several local companies have taken the brave step of employing deaf people with great success, proving that in some career fields the deaf can be just as good or even better than hearing employees.”
Part of eDeaf's work is to drive awareness of the need to provide meaningful employment opportunities to the deaf amongst the public, corporate South Africa and government. “We've been working with eDeaf, DeafSA and MP Vincent Gore over the past few years to understand the challenges faced by the deaf and differently-abled community, and meaningful employment was identified as one of the obstacles to independence with dignity,” said Reza Bardien, the Academic Programme Manager at Microsoft SA.
“We agreed to collaborate with the view to removing obstacles to accessing our mainstream IT curricula roadmap and drive international certification via the Microsoft IT Academy programme to enable what must be the most marginalised community in South Africa to realise their full potential.”
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