Education and training

Children's education

In rural areas of Latin America, families of deafblind children have great difficulty finding the education, health or social services they need. Many are not even aware their child is deafblind until a Sense International supported partner visits their home. And even when they know, they may not have the ability or money to travel to a school or other facility for deafblind children, if one exists at all.

So Sense International (Latin America) works to ensure that all deafblind people can get the help they need, either at special facilities or in their homes or communities. In 2005, we started a new programme in rural Bolivia for 24 deafblind children and their families, providing specialist services where before there were none. And in Bogotà, Colombia, we are persuading the local government to start providing education for deafblind children at mainstream school with units for the disabled.

Teacher training

When we first started our work in Latin America, we focused on providing training to education professionals, including teachers. We have expanded this work by lobbying governments to include deafblindness in national teacher training curricula. As a result, the ministries of education of Brazil, Colombia and Peru have made agreements with our partner organisations in those countries to ensure that deafblindness is part of specialist teacher training.

Vocational training and support for adults

In addition to our work with deafblind children, Sense International (Latin America) supports services for deafblind adults which enable them to become more independent and to be able to contribute financially to their families.

In the past few years, we have helped to establish day centres for young adults in Colombia, Peru and Brazil, where deafblind people can find out about employment opportunities, get training and rehabilitation and take part in recreational activities.