Youth of Ukraine use sign language to break down barriers
A group of UPSHIFT participants created training courses to teach sign language, helping the hearing and hearing impaired to better understand each other.
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Recently, four young friends – Denys, Yulia, Maksym and Anna – set out to break down the barriers between hearing and hearing impaired people.
"We want to teach hearing people how to communicate with the hearing impaired,” says 17-year-old Denys. “So we decided to create a space where everyone can learn sign language.”
The friends, who study at the Krayina Dobra (Land of Goodness) Education and Rehabilitation Centre in the Ukrainian city of Cherkasy, formed a team called ‘Everything is Possible’. They then applied to participate in the UPSHIFT youth innovation programme, run by the NGO Zadzerkallia with support from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Government of Japan. The students received training in the programme's methodology, mentoring support and resources to implement their idea.
Now, they run a communication centre at their school, where they hold training sessions and workshops for children and young people that teach basic gestures, the dactylic alphabet and ways of communicating with the hearing impaired. These sessions are also held online. In total, the team has organized 10 events in various formats.
"Participants in our workshops said they were very interested in learning sign language,” says 16-year-old Maksym. “It is important to them. They even asked us to hold more of these events.”
The team also created a 20-video course that teaches young people how to use sign language to report danger, ask for help or simply say hello and thank you. In addition, they worked with a Cherkasy rock band to create a social video highlighting the importance of communication.
“Knowing sign language will help us to be more open to communicating with other people and build a barrier-free society," says Denys.
In total, more than 200 students have taken part in training sessions run by the ‘Everything is Possible’ team. And the young people are not stopping there. In future, they plan to run workshops for adults, including doctors, teachers and police officers.
UPSHIFT is a youth innovation programme run by UNICEF. The full-scale war has caused numerous humanitarian challenges across the country. Recognising that young people are a driving force in their communities, UNICEF has engaged UPSHIFT participants in addressing these challenges. Last year, 459 teams (2,003 young people aged 14 to 24) participated in the UPSHIFT programme, developing projects that reached more than 30,000 beneficiaries.
