Kisumu VCT centre speaking to the hearing impaired

The Nyaweri Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) Centre, in a purple and yellow freight container standing in the middle of a field in the western Kenyan city of Kisumu, was opened in response to a need for HIV/AIDS education for the deaf and hearing impaired. Inside the container at least five young hearing-impaired counsellors and peer educators are busily communicating in sign language. "We opened in 2004, and are part of the Liverpool VCT, Care and Treatment," said Miriam Opondo, a counsellor at the centre, as Leon, a VCT quality control assessor, translated her signing. "We cater to Nyanza Province, Western Province and the Rift Valley." The centre has tested more than 1,000 people since its inception, most of them hearing impaired. "Before the centre opened, the deaf in this area were ignorant about AIDS - many thought it was a disease only for hearing people," Opondo said. "Most people learn about AIDS from the radio, TV or peer education, but they are left out of these messages because they can't hear them."

Miriam Opondo - Signing up to VCT. Play

She noted that the rate of illiteracy in the region was exceptionally high, which meant deaf people could not read newspapers or HIV/AIDS literature distributed by nongovernmental organisations. "When they go to normal VCT centres there is a communication breakdown between them and the counsellors," Opondo said. "But when they come here they are understood and do not feel stigmatised for being deaf, since most of us here also have problems hearing." Liverpool VCT has two other VCT centres for the deaf in Kenya - one in the capital, Nairobi, and another in the coastal city of Mombasa. While the three centres are a start, there is still a gap in the provision of services to the deaf, according to Opondo. The deaf community, estimated at between 300,000 and 600,000, represents a significant portion of the country's two million HIV-infected people. A 2004 World Bank study of some 88 deaf students around the age of 18 revealed that three-quarters of them knew very little about HIV/AIDS. MORE FACILITIES NEEDED "Many of the deaf in this region live very far from here [Kisumu], so we run a mobile VCT service to reach rural people," Opondo said. But often these clients are also illiterate in Kenyan Sign Language (KSL), never having had the opportunity to go to school and learn it. "Illiteracy and distance remain big problems for us - we do not have the resources to travel so widely, so we know there are people we are not reaching," she said. "Sometimes what they know is not KSL, or they don't know any sign language at all." She suggested that the government do its part by ensuring that hearing as well as deaf children be taught KSL free of charge to avoid leaving the deaf uneducated. Counsellors also often had to escort deaf HIV-positive people to the hospital for treatment and act as interpreters for medical staff, stretching the limited human resources of the centre even more. "We need more services, especially mobile services," Opondo said, "so we can reach all the deaf in this region with HIV/AIDS information."