CLaSH Newsletter August 2012 Issue 64

In this issue: Bits and Pieces • Farewell and welcome back • Outreach to Mukwe District • Cooperation with

Ministry of Education • Operation Omakutsi • CLaSH Unit • A new CLaSH calendar

From the Editor’s Desk Windhoek (and also the CLaSH office) has become considerably warmer during the past week. Trees have started to bloom and the sweet smell of jasmine waves through the early evening air. The term break between second and third trimester starts today, and a long weekend is lying ahead of us. CLaSH has responded to the pressure of deadlines for reports and funding propos-als and we can now write this newsletter in a very positive frame of mind.

Easy Eric Sell alias EES, is a German Namibian hip hop and kwaito musician and became well known both in his native Namibia and in Germany. He raps in Namlish, Namibian English and in the particular version of German that is widely spoken in Namibia and that he calls Nam-Slang. A recent concert in Germany was attended by Frauke, a young speech/language therapist. She had lived and worked in Windhoek for some years and bought a CLaSH T-shirt, literally just a few days before her departure. It is great to see EES doing the hand-sign for Namibia, even though he didn't get the di-rection quite right, but look at those shoes! We felt very fortunate when we finally convinced the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation that it would be a brilliant idea to broadcast our adverts about the prevention and treatment of middle ear infections on national radio. Unfortu-nately, after only running for two weeks, everything was brought to a standstill by a strike for all nbc broadcasts on TV and radio. There is hope that they will continue once the parties have found a solution. In early August we bid farewell to Simone, our last weltwärts volunteer from Germany. Sadly, the GIZ (Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) has decided to terminate their involvement with the weltwärts programme, which

brings a good and enriching partnership of four years to an end. We gratefully remember our four volunteers, their input, their creative ideas, their help and youthful spirit. Since each of them has been with us for a full year, we got to know them quite well and have very specific memories of Vicky, Inga, Moritz and Simone. We wish them well in the future.

The Association for Children with Language, Speech and Hearing Impairments of Namibia CLaSH • P.O.Box 24361 • 80, Dr Frans Indongo Street • Windhoek • Namibia

Tel: +264-61-232704 • Fax: +264-61-233904 • E-mail: office@clash-namibia.org Website: www.clash-namibia.org

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Namibian regions are vast and going on an outreach visit for one week can hardly do justice to all the circuits and schools involved. One district that was always left out when we visited the Kavango region is Mukwe, the most Eastern constituency bordering the Caprivi region. The Re-gional School Counsellor therefore made a special request to “our” outreach team: Yvonne, the Audiologist from the Ministry of Education and Mary, Project Coordinator from CLaSH. In July they went to stay at the Catholic Mission station in Andara for one week, visited 6 schools in the area and saw 142 learners. The Life Skills teachers of all those schools have to be given credit for their thorough pre-selection. 20 learners had to be referred for treatment of middle ear infection, 9 learners had unilateral or a mild hearing loss and were advised accordingly, 4 learners were identified with bilateral perma-nent hearing loss and will be fitted with hearing aids, and10 learners had their ears blocked with impacted wax. They were fortunate because Mary succeeded to wash out and clean all the ears.

Whenever Mary and Yvonne return from an outreach trip and present their figures, we feel an ur-gent need for further action. Since the times of the HARK project our statistics confirm that 20 - 40% of the children assessed present with some kind of hearing loss and roughly 25% of these hearing losses could be prevented. (The HARK project ran from 2002 - 2005 and was based on a tripartite agreement between the Commonwealth Society for the Deaf, the Ministry of Health and Social Services and CLaSH. It allowed for scheduled visits of a mobile audiology clinic to health centres and hospitals in the central Northern regions.) Reports about the outreach visits are always shared with the Regional Offices of Education but summaries expressing concerns and sharing recommendations are also regularly addressed to the Head Offices of the Ministries of Health and Education. We were pleased and very grateful for the invitation to meet the Director for Programmes and Quality Assurance recently. It was a positive discussion resulting in concrete suggestions, e.g. CLaSH will be given an opportunity to share its findings at the upcoming National Conference for Advisory Teachers. We may use the occasion to identify candidates, who are interested in a train-ing as regional resource persons on all issues regarding hearing loss and hearing aids. The Centre for Communication and Deaf Studies have invited us to the launch of Sign Wiki Na-mibia and to a subsequent workshop on the use of tech-nology in Deaf Education. We are happy that through this CCDS is offering some teacher training to the Schools and Units for the Deaf, especially since CLaSH was once again unable to source funds for an Annual Seminar. When a 9 year-old girl, who had become deaf after men-ingitis was discovered in one of the mainstream schools in Katutura, Stephanie was asked to assist the Division Diagnostic, Advisory and Training Services in preparing the girl for a transfer to the Deaf School. Working to-gether with the division’s Educational Psychologist, Stephanie teaches her the basics of Namibian Sign Lan-guage and is very pleased with her progress

Outreach to Mukwe District

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Cooperation with the Ministry of Education

Practising cell phone conversations

Operation Omakutsi

CLaSH Unit

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At the beginning of August Toini returned from her mater-nity leave. The day before she started work officially, she visited the unit together with her baby boy, much to the delight of all the children (and teachers!) in the Unit. Sue observed an incident that really touched our hearts: Toini had put down the baby on a blanket when he was asleep. Vieira, completely taken with this tiny being laid down next to him and when he opened his eyes started signing to him. We have a good team at the Unit. It shows in the way the children are making progress in all aspects of their devel-opment. As their communication and signing skills expand the children show an increasing desire to share information and tell us their stories. Sue always makes sure that the practical aspects of a topic are not neglected. When the children discussed “transport” for example, she suggested that they wash her car - not as child labour but as a lot of refreshing fun. 7 of the 10 children attending the Unit at present will move on to “big school” next year but we already have 5 new children lined up to fill the vacancies. Future and present unit parents are getting to know each other through the sign language classes that have started at the beginning of the second term and now take place every Tuesday evening. We are pleased to say that 6 - 8 families have attended or sent representatives each time; a very good record. For the term break now, parents have also requested two weeks off.

During the first week of October, Operation Omakutsi will take place for the sixth time. (Omakutsi is the Oshiwambo word for ‘ears’.) This year, Drs Lautermann and Lehnerdt will again work at Oshakati Hospital, together with their Namibian counterpart Dr Imbangu and carry out operations on between 40 and 50 patients in an effort to restore their hearing. We are busy sorting out all the paperwork, organising the import of medicines and microscope and arranging a guest lecture at the University of Namibia’s newly established Medical School. Air Namibia already generously granted the excess luggage and the offices of Ministry of Health’s Permanent Secretary and his Deputy are sorting out the authorisation to practise and the work visa. Although we have been through all the administrative issues five times before, they remain a daunting task...

CLaSH Calendar 2013 Just a glimpse to trigger your curiosity… Thanks to the continued support from Standard Bank we are once again able to produce a CLaSH calendar for the coming year. This time we have been assisted by Mechthild Merdes, a passionate and highly artistic photographer when her time allows. The calen-dar will picture the children from our pre-school unit but have a new format, a new feel, a new touch. As always, we are looking forward to your comments but first of all we are obviously looking forward to your orders. Contact us at the office by telephone: 061-232704 or via e-mail: office@clash-namibia.org and we shall ensure that your calendars reach you before Christmas.

Thank you to our donors, supporters and friends!

Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare Ministry of Health and Social Services Ministry of Education

Oldenburger Gospelchor Voices e.V.

NAMIBIA INSTITUTE OF PATHOLOGY

(NIP)

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P and M Adrian A and G Bartels J Beiler H Benzing C Berding K Biegert W Böller S Bright and family C Burth M Bwititi K Davidow L Derksen-Witzler O Dollmann W Figge Friends and family of Tante Annerosel German Lutheran Church C and S Glaser T Gomminginger D Gürtler Hörakustik Maurer A Hayer C Hehli

U and B Hermann K Iqbal Bhatti B Jungbluth I Kähler U Kaiser I Kolbe N Kraft T Krug von Nidda G Lehnerdt J Lindner S Lutz A Mack C and W Maddée U Markert L Mätzke M Merdes S Müller D Münstermann R Moltrecht W Nass J Nyandoro J and C Peterson J Richner

A Roediger B Roesner H Sandmann A Schaun R Schlage F Schlotterbeck S Schmidt P Schoemann-Finck M Schulz U Simon U and FJ Trost A van Delden H van Delden S van Delden J van Tonder G Vethacke H and K Weiblen I Weitzel J Werner L Witzler L Wrede

Thank you for all the individual contributions!