The deaf-blind community is often excluded from the main flow of information. This is why, especially during the pandemic and isolation, they needed help and, most of all, they needed access to information. Few of us are aware of double exclusion of the deaf-blind, who either cannot hear the government’s announcements or cannot understand them, as the sign language is completely different than the spoken one. Most of the announcements had no interpretation into sign language whatsoever. This is why we had to take action!
Thanks to HumanDoc South Caucasus Regional Office in Tbilisi, since the beginning of May, the deaf-blind persons received the support they needed through:
📍 phone and online consultations for the deaf-blind persons and their families
📍 the support of interpreter and guides
📍 the support of sign language interpreter online
📍 the access to information in the form of webinars, infographics and films.
Information is prepared in a very accessible way: it includes the interpretation into sign language, subtitles, transcript and audio-description.
We prepared two informative campaigns as well – the picture presents our work on one of them.
All activities for the participants of the deaf-blind club are part of the project “Supporting the Deaf-blind Persons during the COVID-19 Pandemic” in cooperation with the Wolfram Syndrome – Georgia organization, financed from the program of East-West Management Institute (EWMI) Access and USAID/Georgia.
Within the scope of this project, we are actively lobbying for the rights of the deaf-blind community.
deaf-blind persons and their families within a month used the support of the sign language interpreters and guides
persons participated in online trainings which raised their qualifications in terms of providing help and support to the deaf-blind community in the time of isolation
we’ve prepared four films, which constitute a part of social-informative campaigns about COVID, dedicated to the deaf-blind.
Humanitarian Aid
The above-mentioned activities are highly important for our beneficiaries, however, due to the fact that this is one of the most vulnerable groups during the pandemic, also the direct forms of help, like delivering groceries and protective products were of key important. For that reason, the deaf-blind persons received packages containing some basic food products, like sugar, flour, oil, tea etc. and sets for disinfection with face masks and antibacterial gels.
