The World Health Organization has revealed that approximately 9% of the population in Sri Lanka has loss of hearing which accounts to 300 000+ people. The club identified the communication and knowledge gap between the deaf community with the rest of the populace. So Sagna (Sinhala Word For Sign) was initiated as a bridge.
Sagna was a multi-phase project. Phase 01 was aimed exclusively at medical students and young doctors. The Sri Lankan sign language is different from that used in the world, it is a language of its own with meagre resources online to learn. Therefore, we developed a Medical Sign Language curriculum validated by HealthCare and Sign Language experts, a reference sign language book and an online course complete with an assessment. This curriculum is now cooperated as an accepted elective option by the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo. So far, we have 1800+ medical students and doctors who have completed the course with over 2800+ downloads of the course book. We also conducted a pre and post course attitude assessment of those who took the course of which the details have been submitted for research purposes to identify the impact of the course. This method was a Sri Lankan first.
In addition to this, a PR campaign was conducted to increase awareness of the effects of communication gaps of the deaf community with healthcare professionals which included a short film starring medical students called “Bridge The Gap” An education YouTube channel exists under the brand of Sagna which was promoted under this phase.
Phase 02 was aimed at breaking stereotypes of the deaf community. This included a social media poster series and “Beyond The Voice” talent show done in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Central Federation of the Deaf (SLCFD) which gave a platform to children from over 15 schools of the deaf community. Between the singing, dancing, drama and art, not only did the kids carve out of the stereotypes, they remodeled an entire medical community’s perception of what they are capable of.
Phase 03 is an ongoing phase aimed at the Corporate Community of Sri Lanka. With SLFCD collaborators we are designing tailor made content for Corporate Sector employees to better communicate with the deaf. The first collaborator for this is leading grocery company : Cargills FoodCity. With this model implemented, we hope to map our corporate courses to other sectors of Sri Lanka.
