By Noumousso Diané (YES 2018-19, Mali, hosted by AFS in Whitefish, MI) 

On December 20th, the Malian YES Alumni Association held a leadership training with the hearing impaired community in order to help them learn about the convention on the rights of people with disabilities. 

Mali is a highly multilingual country with a significant incidence of deafness, for which meningitis appears to be the main cause, coupled with limited access to adequate health care. With my fellow alumni, we decided to do something in order to help them. During our exchange year in the US, we learned that a disability is not a barrier to success in life and we wanted to make sure that everybody understood that. 

We took the example of Gaoussou Diarra who is deaf and also a YES alumni. He successfully completed the program. This program changed his life so why not the other persons with disabilities? We are all human, we are all the same so we should get the same opportunities. 

In terms of disability rights and advocacy in Mali, we learned that deaf people don’t have a lot of opportunities and people don’t really trust them, they don’t believe in their capacity just because they have a disability. The government made a lot of things easier for them but most of them don’t know their rights. They can get job easily, without any competition; there are some schools just for them... They are so talented and courageous, but still, they need help. 

The activity took place at AMA SOURDS which is a school for people with disabilities, an interpreter was present to make the communication skills easy. During the workshop, deaf people communicated in sign language and we started to feel frustrated because we couldn’t understand anything at all. At that moment we opened our eyes, we started to understand them. They feel exactly like that when we talk to each other because they cannot hear either. 

The leadership training gave them more courage to achieve their goals and know much more about their rights and opportunities in the country since this was their first leadership training to help them on their rights. Alumni also encouraged them to participate in the YES program.

In the future, we are planning to give persons with disabilities a voice, try to give them more opportunities with government assistance and make sure that many of them know their rights and they know what they are doing. A help center for persons with disabilities is also one of our future projects. Our goal is to support them as much as possible. 

#AccessForAll #ADA30