Help Deaf Children learn to read and write

Argentina is experiencing a critical economic situation with increasing levels of poverty that affects girls and boys from vulnerable families even more. Within this scenario, civil society organizations are urged to strengthen support. We NEED your collaboration to help deaf children. 

In Canales we work hard in order to guarantee that children and adolescents have access to literature and culture in its varied expressions, and for this purpose we expanded the Videobook platform by adding  two new categories: Legends and Poetry.

For this project we partner with the Libros y Casas (Books and Houses) Program of the Argentinean National Ministry of Culture* whose slogan perfectly shows the reason for our synergy: “Being able to exercise the right to read opens the door to other rights, expands universes, it allows us to access the stories of others and recognize our own.”

Deaf children and adolescents have few experiences of accessing literature in their language, Argentine Sign Language. That is one of the reasons why our projects seek to offer opportunities to enjoy reading in all its formats and genres, in the hands of diverse readers and with relevant themes for different ages. But not only that: we also focus on the literary productions of the deaf community and on motivating them to tell their own stories, the ones of their community, as we did in this year's Literary Festival and in the 5th LSA Storytelling Contest in 2021.

Stories from here and there

The legends that we presented are Pedro y el lobo (Peter and the Wolf) and The Land Without Evil: the first one from European literature called “universal”, the other originated from the oral stories of one of the native tribes of Argentina, the Guaraníes. Both legends are enriching by allowing access to the culture and worldviews of diverse communities. For the second example, we added versions of complementary texts that contextualize that legend. These titles offer reading opportunities to girls and boys of various ages as they are also part of our collection for teenagers.

Poetry and the challenge of interpretation

As we have already pointed out on other occasions, Spanish and Argentine Sign Language are completely independent languages (as are all sign languages and oral languages that are used in the same territory throughout the world). Building the bridge from what is said in one language to the other is not an easy task, especially since the aesthetic charge is essential in poetry. The team of interpreters, deaf advisors and readers of this project had faced this great challenge with the conviction that all readers have the right to encounter the expressive power, emotions and experiences of those who write poetry.

In this case, poems were chosen from the anthology “Rhymed Animals and Not So Much”, intended for early readers and written by renowned national authors. With these titles, the www.videolibros.org platform already reached 89 titles read in 4 different sign languages.

Deaf children need access to culture and education. JOIN our programs, to prevent them from falling into a disadvantaged destiny by providing them with cultural and educational opportunities!

* Libros y Casas is a program of the National Directorate of Cultural Training dependent on the Secretariat of Cultural Management of the Ministry of Culture of the Argentine Nation that since 2007 has delivered more than 1,800,000 books to family and community libraries that accompany the plans of state housing. To this end, it has compiled books aimed at all ages with titles by more than 15 Argentine authors from a wide variety of genres. This library has a digital public free access  version with a chapter made up of the various accessible versions. Canales Asociación Civil has been in charge of the versions in Argentine Sign Language as can be seen in the links below.

Links:

• Libros y Casas proyect
• Leyends in LSA on the Platform of the Ministry of Education
• Poetry in LSA on the Platform of the Ministry of Education

Lots of achievements during Deaf People´s Month.

In September the whole world celebrates deaf communities, their sign languages and their culture. Thank you for your interest in this project and for being part of this celebration!

Considering the relevance of this month, in which we also celebrate the national day of deaf people in Argentina, and as an organization committed to the development of deaf children, Canales is working at full speed so that our projects reach all deaf children.

We joined the global mobilization proposed by the World Federation of the Deaf, by developing two major pieces of material:  first, we translated  into Spanish and Argentine Sign Language - LSA -  the Declaration on the Rights of Deaf Children.  We have made it available on all our networks because we believe that it’s essential that this material reaches every school, every association of the deaf and every home.

Second, we are reinforcing  this mobilization with a video campaign based on each of the themes proposed by the WFD for this week. It is crucial that deaf girls and boys know about their identity, the history of deaf communities and their culture to empower themselves and to make certain their rights.

In addition, we have recently enjoyed ourselves at a great event with deaf children and adolescents: we organized the First Literary Festival in Argentine Sign Language in which 15 schools of deaf students participated personally, and 4 more joined online.

During the Festival, deaf artists presented narratives, poems and a new artistic expression called “vernacular visual” that is being developed around the world by deaf communities, to more than 230 children. This way, we managed to bring deaf girls, boys and adolescents in touch with various expressions of literature in LSA. In addition to live broadcasting the artistic proposals for both age groups (6 to 9 years and 10 to 14 years), we published pedagogical proposals so that teachers in the classroom can resume this experience and delve deeper into different areas related to literacy. It was an extremely enriching experience for all participants and a great meeting between girls, boys, adolescents and teachers who do not have many encountering opportunities.

Regarding the dissemination of stories in Argentine Sign Language, our Videobooks in Sign Language participated in the International pre-festival of Deaf Cinema in Argentina (FICSOR), which had a special chapter for schools for the deaf.

Finally, and to crown this report, we want to share with you that this year Canales is commemorating its 20th anniversary and to celebrate it, we are working on the creation of new textbooks for teaching reading and writing to deaf children, and in the production of early literacy videos. However, the truly innovative and transformative project will be the creation of a bilingual content online platform in LSA and Spanish that will reach all schools and families, an ambitious project that will need the support of institutions, companies and benefactors. 

We invite you to join us during Deaf People´s Month and leave your imprint on deaf children education!

Links:

• Download Declaration on the Rights of Deaf Children
• Access to Festivals live video
• FicSor thanks Canales for participating, among others