Reasonable accommodation
Inclusion for everybody.
Let’s talk about reasonable accommodation. I was a student at OutboxEDUPrepiv Bootcamp and one of the things that Outbox prioritizes is inclusion. At the Bootcamp, we also had students that are disabled or have physical impairments ie. they were deaf, or couldn't talk. As you know, it’s quite difficult to communicate with such people but there at Outbox, life has been made quite easier for them. We have facilitators who use sign language to interpret them. On 5th March, we had a presentation in sign language by Mr Ssewagude Robert from Light the world about reasonable accommodation. This was my very first time listening to someone speak using sign language. It was quite hard to understand what he was communicating but lucky enough, he had come with an interpreter for us. As he used sign language, his interpreter spoke what he said to us so I was able to grasp what he said.
My Experience
I must say matching sign language with spoken words isn’t that easy but as time went on, I could do a perfect match of the signs he used with what the interpreter spoke and trust me, there were no mistakes. The lesson became interesting as everything started making sense. I could keenly observe the lip and hand movements as he spoke. I really learnt a lot from this lesson and here are my takeaways.
Takeaways
Disabled people are not stupid, they are 100% human-like the enabled people, all we have to do is embrace them and support them just as we know disability isn’t inability.
We can use sign language to communicate with the disabled, we need to master the common signs like for help, asking a question.
Consider doing a sign-language course so as to serve the community as an interpreter. There are short courses for local and international languages. You can go learn and reach out.
Here is one major question that he asked us during his presentation.
What comes to your mind when you see a disabled person?
