Rwanda Family initiative

According to the Rwanda National Social Transformation (NST1,2017-2024), quality healthcare will be enhanced through providing adequate health infrastructure, skilled and motivated health workforce as well as enabling health systems. Thus, the Elevate Prize will make sign language interpreters available necessary for quality healthcare. The project will address healthcare barriers for Deaf Rwandans through sign language education for community hospital based employees. This training will fill gaps of interpretation or inaccessible information during that regularly health services delivery for Deaf Rwandans.

This Elevate-Prize will enable the implementation of our project in line with the Sustainable Development Goal #3: Good Health and Wellbeing. Through an ongoing partnership with the Rutsiro Deaf Association and Murunda hospital, we will utilize digital and in-person training with a period of two years in order to equip healthcare providers with communication skills needed for accessible healthcare. Trough this training, we seek to integrate sign language or bilingual communication, in local field visits, establish community clubs for sing language and hire local Rwanda sign language experts. The training will also be bolstered by three United States of America based Experts for training and monitoring and evaluation

I am a Founder and Executive Director of Rwanda Family Initiative, a local civil society organization, which was established after observing the issues related to gender equality, children rights and malnutrition in my community. Since its inception, our organization has been committed to promoting of all Rwandan families. We support our local beneficiaries and other local civil society organizations to identify the social problems, explore creative solutions and best practices then take action to resolve them and improve a quality of life. It was through this local consultation that we learned  of the communication barriers in healthcare in western province of Rwanda.

I have extensive experience with development initiative. I completed the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders Initiative in 2016 and later partnered with USAID on mentorship projects. I also worked with the United States Peace Corps Rwanda in 2013, to successfully implement four projects aimed at empowering vulnerable women in Murunda community. I hope the Elevate Prize Team will consider our solution upholding the human dignity and support us to increase our community impact.

This Prize will set unbreakable foundation for ensuring that all Rwandans can access  healthcare through ensuring accessible language in healthcare services.

Worldwide, 43o millions of people identify as needing some form of rehabilitation to address hearing loss ( World Health Organization, 2021).

Rutsiro District (the site of intervention) has 272  who identify as Deaf with 46% as female. As a result of inaccessible communication, stakeholders have acknowledged that sensitive health topics and human rights abuses are often overlooked by healthcare workers. For example, in conversation with local stakeholders we learned that Deaf women often have difficulty reporting sexual harassment and rape they undergo due to the communication barriers. Further, confidential healthcare conversations are difficult when there are communication barriers or if a Deaf Rwandan must rely on familymember for interpretation.  Healthcare Administrators report that there is a desperate need for sign language interpreters at Murunda Hospital.

We intend to train existing key Health Employees in Rwandan SignLanguage to allow healthcare providers to directly communicate with Deaf patients in addition to or instead of interpreters.

Rwanda Family Initiative promotes gender equality and children rights in particular. Therefore, we are proposing this project in order to defend the rights of Deaf women and support the Rwanda National Strategy for Transformation (NST1, 2017-2024), Enhancing demographic dividend through ensuring access to quality health for all.

Much effort has been made to improve healthcare needs, particularly for the people with disabilities. However, more work needs to be done. Different Organizations support people with disability in general and operates in urban areas, teach sign language but put a little emphasis on rural areas which covers more vulnerable who need a support.

What makes our project unique is to introduce a hospital-based institution-wide  sign  language interpreter to facilitate the communication between the Deaf-women in particular, and to further provide training to all healthcare providers in the hospital, including (but not limited to) frontline intake staff and the investigator and health providers in charge of gender-based violence cases. Through developing an accessible language environment we directly advocate for the rights of marginalized group (Deaf Rwandans) in a marginalized area.

This Sign Language Education for inclusive health-care project will be implemented with the following activities: First, through a directed ( see priorities above) and competitive process , 50 training participants will undertake Rwanda Sign Language (RSL) training. During the selection process, intake professionals, gender-based violence personnel , and community health workers will be prioritized. We will train them twice a week for a total of 6 hours. The curriculum of training intends to last 18 weeks, that is to say 4.5 months. Amid the training, the participants will carry out the field visit to two local Centers of Deaf People for best practices of academic and experiential learning. Similarly, we will raise a public awareness about the program through social medias: televisions, radios and international Newspapers. we will monitor and evaluate the program throughout and adjust as needed to fill the communication gaps.

This project lies in humanity because we are advocating for marginalized people and promote their well-being.

Rutsiro Deaf Association will be involved in funds management and training coordination