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| Logo from the dayofthegirl.org website |
The focus is to abolish child marriage by the year 2030 and to shore up support for educating the girl child. We know that the development of a family, community and country depends on the education and thus development of the woman who, in essence, should have been educated as a young girl. That is to say, educating a girl is a sure way of building a foundation for her family and thus her community.
It is an extremely laudable goal. And I, for one, cannot help to think how this will impact the deaf girl in the short term. If it could take ages for a non-disabled girl to overcome such hurdles in this part of the world, who knows how long that would take for a deaf girl to do the same? Deaf adults still receive the rough end of the stick in the society today- not getting the basic education, for example and I can only imagine what it would mean to fight for the deaf girl to enjoy the same rights as the non-disabled girl.
Stories of non-disabled girls around the world abound and are heard everyday. Very few people get to hear the story of a deaf girl. I began a video documentary some months ago on a couple of deaf girls who were lured away from school and trafficked out of state. It is still ongoing and I hope to be able to tell their collective story.
Next week, the Nigerian National Association of the Deaf will mark the International Week of the Deaf which was actually earlier celebrated between 24th - 30th September this year in other countries. I hope to participate in a couple of activities next week and intend to share on this blog.
Until then...
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