Deaf pupils try to maintain learning in spite of Covid-19 situation, other activities put on hold |20 January 2022

The 11 students currently enrolled at the centre for the deaf at Mont Fleuri are also feeling the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

At present they are all at home and teachers are preparing weekly lessons to send to them. Some parents have been collecting the work sheets while some have been delivered.

“One of our teachers, Calvin Morel, lives at Perseverance and two of our students live near him so it is easier for him to bring lessons over for them,” Anita Gardner, the chairperson of the Association of People with Hearing Impairment (APHI) said yesterday.

She added that the fact that there are only 11 students it is easier to manage.

“Like other institutions, we too have put in place strict sanitary measures such as thorough sanitisation of the building every day, frequent washing and hand sanitising and due to our small group social distancing is not a problem,” Ms Gardner said.

She went on to note that so far only one student had contracted Covid-19 but this was during the school holidays so it did not affect the centre’s operations.

“Fortunately to date none of our teachers has been affected. They have all been vaccinated and students over 12 as well,” Ms Gardner pointed out.

Ms Gardner remarked that the sad thing is that the centre has not been able to organise activities that the students look forward to and enjoy such as camping.

“They enjoy going camping very much during the holidays and also our fundraising activity which involves collecting donations from generous passersby around Victoria. These they miss a lot,” said Ms Gardner.

Meanwhile she has said the centre is expecting the support and a helping hand from a deaf teacher from South Africa in February.

“Three of our students are hoping to do their IGCSE this year and we are hoping all goes well for them. Additionally, sign language training for 15 social workers was supposed to be completed end of this month but we’ve had to postpone some classes and now the training will have to be extended,” Ms Gardner remarked, noting that Covid-19 has not spared anyone.

Marie-Anne Lepathy