A six year old deaf girl was identified by chance during a check-up interview on her mother's economic progress under the Keep a Girl Alive program. Thelma is not going to school nor learning sign language, since the issue is very strange to the conditions of the village and very expensive to adequately address in Cameroon too. She has a right to education and to communicate, she is also at risk of under developing her thinking abilities if she does not learn to write and sign language soon.
The case of Thelma was just known one week ago, when a volunteer was interviewing Stephanie, her mother, who has a small business thanks to the KGA program. Rapidly Reach Out contacted Buea School of the Deaf and got exact information on how much would it cost to get Thelma into the school and what would be the procedure. We can get her in before the 8th of September, she will learn sign language and normal curricula. But neither Stephanie nor Reach Out have the necessary funds to pay for it
Even if we got all money required in a few days, it would have to go through globalgiving which takes more than one month, and she will miss the signing period, at such an age that would put at risk her whole development as a human being. This is why we have reached an agreement with the school to pay a small part of the amount required from Reach Out emergency funds, and they will patiently wait for the rest of it to come, but we are trusting that someone is going to care enough about Thelma.
We are aware that such a project might not be sustainable over time, Thelma has to get an education through all her young life, not only this year. Stephanie is progressing a lot in her business, and we have agreed with her that she will gradually be taking more of the financial burden over the years. She is also willing to learn sign language herself. Even in the worst case, if she could not go to school next year, a child will have learned how to communicate with the world.That's unvaluable