Despite possessing enormous potentials, the majority of Deaf people in Uganda are marginalized from accessing mainstream services and life opportunities. Experiences of discrimination at all levels of society create barriers that hamper their ability to lead productive and meaningful lives as equal citizens. Negative attitudes and prejudices towards the Deaf arise from misconceptions about causes of deafness, commonly associated to witchcraft and supernatural causes.
Eighty percent (80%) of people with disabling hearing loss live in low and middle-income countries and acquire hearing loss because of preventable diseases such as malaria, meningitis, etc.
DLU works to respond to the needs of Deaf people by providing various intervention programmes to advance their welfare. With Deaf Rights & Advocacy cutting across all its activities, the organisation operates three (3) main programmes:
- Education
- Business Enterprise
- Livelihoods
KEY FACT:
A World Health Organisation (WHO) report states that over 1 billion young adults are at risk of permanent, avoidable hearing loss due to unsafe listening practices.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/deafness-and-hearing-loss
Unsafe listening practices poses serious risks to young people and will have serious implications on their education, social and psychological development. There is a greater need for nations, especially those in low and middle-income regions, to understand and address this problem to find meaningful interventions.
REFERENCE
For further reading, please find article on hearing loss by Nassozi B. Kiyaga and Donald R. Moores. https://web.archive.org/web/20180310074232id_/http://muse.jhu.edu:80/article/42292/pdf