As part of activities marking this year’s International week of the deaf, the Ghana National Association of the Deaf (GNAD) in collaboration with the Obuasi Municipal Assembly organized a two-day training workshop for workers in various institutions on using the basic sign languages to ease communication between them (institutions) and members of the deaf community in Obuasi.

The Municipal Assembly represented by the Deputy Coordinating Director, representatives of the Ghana National Association of the Deaf ,representatives of various institutions in the Municipality and the Media were fairly represented in the two-day training workshop which took place on Wednesday,12th October and Friday 14th October ,2016.

Mr. Anthony Buckner, the Deputy Coordinating Director for the Obuasi Municipal Assembly talked about the purpose of the workshop with the theme “With Sign Language, I am Equal”. Mr. Buckner said the deaf face a lot of challenges in their dealings with institutions like hospitals, banks, police stations, post offices, Ghana Education Service and other public places and posited that the workshop is to salvage the situation by taking those institutions through the nitty-gritty of Sign Languages.
He further .appealed to participants to take the training serious.
Speaking through an interpreter, the leader of the Ghana National Association of the deaf, Obuasi branch, Mr. Yaw Konadu enumerated a plethora of challenges the deaf face especially in the various hospitals where due to lack of effective Communication, they have been given wrong medications.This, he continued is among the reasons for the organization of the training workshop.
Mr.Konadu had some advised for parents of deaf children .He appealed to them not to abandon their children in orphanages or hospitals but rather provide them with the needed Care and not shirk their responsibilities towards them.
Members of the Deaf Association in the well-attended workshop appealed to government to support them to enable them extend the programme to the entire country.
The International Week of the deaf is an annual event celebrated on the last week of every September. It was first launched in 1958 in Rome in Italy. The event this year was to commemorate the 10th Anniversary for the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and acknowledge the recent adoption of the 2030 agenda of the new sustainable Development Goals.

SIGNED (SAMPSON MANU) MUNICIPAL INFORMATION OFFICER