the reason for this being that 33% of Deaf adults in South Africa are illiterate, & 75% have Functional literacy problems, and that Sign Language is the "Mother Tongue" of the Deaf Community.
Our objective is to provide an educational programme which will allow Deaf adults to participate in Government and local Elections in South Africa.
The Voter Education workshop is run in Sign Language throughout Kwa Zulu Natal.
The first Voter Education workshop was held on the 30 October 1993 by the institute for Multi Party Democracy. Thereafter 3 Deaf Educators developed their own Voter Education Programmeand ran very successful workshops within the Deaf Community of Kwa Zulu Natal. The workshops started in January 1994 and still continue to date.
Much preparation has gone into this project with books, pamplets and posters being translated into very basic language and including many pictures which help to explain things visually.
The Deaf Educators made sure that the Deaf Community were aware of how to vote; what voting is all about; that they had the same opportunity to obtian this information as their hearing counterparts; and that they were able to exercise their Democratic Rig
A Mini Election was held at the workshops to teach the Deaf Community about the voting process. Open debates were held between Political Parties and the Deaf Community. Through this the Deaf had the opportunity to find out what the different Political Par
At the time over 1000 Deaf people attended the Voter Education workshops throughout Kwa Zulu Natal. This project is an ongoing project and is used to educate the Deaf Community about Demoncracy and the Government of South Africa, Political Rights as well