FOR the past 20 years she has worked with hearing-impaired children, revelling in the beauty of the language that empowers them to scale the sound barrier which compresses their world using their hands.

Now, the principal of Danny Williams School for the Deaf in St Andrew, Heidi-Ann Mitchell-Dillon, who hails from a family of educators, says her fascination with the world of the hearing impaired and signing, which began in her teenage years, is yet to wane.

“I’ve enjoyed every moment of it. I am from a family of teachers. My mom is a teacher, my aunt is a teacher, but in terms of shifting to persons who are hearing impaired, I was exposed to some persons who were, and it happened at church. I was curious; I wanted to communicate with them,” she told the Jamaica Observer in a recent interview.

That curiosity set the stage for the career she now embraces.

“I’ve always loved working with children and teenagers so that passion was there and it led me to teaching, but I wanted to specialise and work with those who are deaf. I wanted to learn the language, and they want you to learn their language; they are very friendly. It’s a beautiful language,” Mitchell-Dillon said.

According to the educator, however, that beauty is not embraced by everyone, a challenge the hearing impaired and their families struggle to overcome every day.

“Exposure is one thing we find our students suffer with because a lot of parents are not comfortable taking them out in the public because of society. There is still stigma there. Because they are not able to respond to them in a language, you find that a lot of persons are not sure how to communicate with them,” she said.

According to Mitchell-Dillon, the external struggles maximise the internal.

“As parents they want their child to be just like the average child so you find that sometimes they have guilt of having a child who is deaf or hard of hearing; sometimes they are uncomfortable being part of society. They struggle with that a lot, and sometimes they are in denial that their child has a challenge,” she told the
Sunday Observer.

Noting that some parents have shied away from learning sign language, Mitchell-Dillon said the school has taken the initiative to curb this resistance.

“They are a vulnerable group so they have to ensure that they know how to communicate with them. We offer sign language classes, for free, for parents, siblings and relatives. The cohort we have, they are showing interest and they have participated. We invite all persons who have relationships with the school, anyone who is going to come in contact with a deaf child, bus drivers and so on. We do encourage our parents to learn sign language — and not just learn words, but communicate,” she told the
Sunday Observer.

Some parents, she said, have risen to the challenge and have even pulled in other family members to learn.

“You do have a few who realise the importance, so not just the parents learn the language but there are siblings also. But, that is the sad reality. It is challenging, it takes a lot of time to learn the language and to be consistent because, as the child is getting older, the language advances,” the educator shared.

She said the school, which has a cohort of 50 students ranging in aged from 1 to 12, has no qualms about including in its ranks children who are not deaf or mute but who have parents who are hearing impaired.

“We have students who are deaf, profound deaf; you have children who are hard of hearing, meaning they have some residual hearing loss; and we have students who are deaf with additional disabilities. And then [there are] the children who are not deaf or mute but their parents are; and then we have their siblings who are not deaf but when their parents see how well their other children are doing, they want them to come here,” she explained.

“You find that a lot of parents do that because they want their child to be able to communicate in the language. So at the preschool level you find that we have a good amount of children who are hearing. When the language develops they have a choice: They can stay in the system or transition to one of the traditional schools,” she said further.

Noting that the school’s operations have not been without its challenges, Mitchell-Dillon said its selection as one of three beneficiaries of this year’s Sagicor Sigma Honour Run, in honour of the late founder and Chairman R Danny Williams, is nothing short of a godsend.

“Our school is in great need of the funds we will receive from Sagicor. Our students are visual learners, and because of that we rely heavily on a lot of resources to ensure that we can provide quality education to our students. We were really excited to find out that we were one of the beneficiaries,” Mitchell-Dillon said.

She said the pledge of assistance came just three weeks after a meeting in which a plea was made to parents for donations.

“We appealed to the parents that the school is struggling because at the beginning of the school year we were not able to purchase half of the resources we needed, and that was because of inflation; and then there are other needs we would have wanted to ensure that we could supply. Then it’s like divine intervention — we got the call that we were selected,” a satisfied Mitchell-Dillon told the Sunday Observer.

The Sagicor Sigma Honour Run, scheduled for Sunday, February 18, is now in its 26th year. Since the start of this charity road race more than $650 million has been donated to numerous beneficiaries with a focus on health, child-related and educational initiatives.

The event is the largest road race in the Caribbean, and 100 per cent of all monies from the run supports the beneficiaries named each year.

Jamaica’s 400m hurdler Rushell Clayton, who took bronze in the event at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, last August; Reggae Boyz captain and goalkeeper Andre Blake; and
FYAH 105’s DJ Orrett “Bambino” Hart are the event’s ambassadors this year.