Project We Hear You is a joint effort of the Youth Advocacy Network Sri Lanka (YANSL) and the British Council. Their main objective is to improve the access to SRHR (sexual and reproductive health and rights) services to people living with disabilities. They discuss important topics such as pleasure, anatomy, gender, relationships, sexual abuse and harassment, STI’s and HIV, and contraception for those hard of hearing.
The website was launched on 3 April at Hilton Residencies Colombo, in the presence of the members of YANSL and guests.
Speaking at the event was Youth Advocacy Network Sri Lanka Director of Programmes Shelani Palihawadana, who is also a Sexual and Reproductive Health trainer, and the Project Co-ordinator for We Hear You. She has also represented Sri Lanka in the delegation at the International Conference for Population and Development, the Nairobi Summit, and has represented the organisation, as well as the country in many international forums.
Explaining how the project came to be, she said: “We have been working on this since 2014. It started off with a sign language glossary which contains terms on sexual and reproductive health. We Hear You is the project that tested out integrating the terms of terminology that we introduce to sign language.”
Going on to elaborate on the phases of the project, she explained that phase one had a series of sessions, and mobile clinics and they have developed interactive software with the sexual and reproductive health and rights curriculum for students of the School for the Deaf in Ratmalana. She added that this topic is seen as a taboo in Sri Lanka, so introducing it to the educational system was not easy; they began with a series of sessions to sensitise the staff members at the Ceylon School for the Deaf in Ratmalana and then to the students, and eventually imitated mobile clinics where students could go to solve their problems with an interpreter who understood the terminology.
Phase Two of the project came with many difficulties caused by the pandemic, as their original plan was to spread this model to the rest of the country and reach out to other schools. She added: “The best thing we could do was to have everything in one place, and that’s how the We Hear You website came to be, so now the information is accessible not only to adolescents but to everyone who needs to know anything about Sexual and Reproductive rights.”
The event featured a video put together by YANSL, depicting their struggles and progress. Speaking on video, sign language interpreter Samanmali added: “Our deaf community expects help from us as sign language interpreters so it would be great if we could sensitise sign language interpreters to terms from sexual and reproductive health, since it would be highly beneficial for the deaf community. I think knowledge on basic health-related sign language must be given to nurses, because the deaf community can reach out to those nurses and obtain the services they require.”
Further, Dr. Iresh Jayaweera explained that the challenges faced by the deaf community are many, adding that some have even gone to the point of taking one’s own life. “Even the general public has issues expressing themselves, so imagine if it’s that difficult for them, then how would a person unable to talk and understand express their issues to a doctor?” he questioned.
“This is the tragedy I see in society; these people need a sign language interpreter to communicate but it is difficult to access that service in general society. Today, they successfully exchanged this information with us, and they expressed their issues. Some issues were complicated and that have prolonged for a long period of time and some ended in taking their own lives.” The We Hear You initiative has made an impressive amount of progress in bettering the lives of the hard of hearing community in Sri Lanka, and strive to keep making a difference.
Talking about the features of the website, Palihawadana explained that there are seven main components that have information in the form of questions and answers, and videos in sign language for those hard of hearing, and are embedded with narrations as well for those who are blind. “If anyone’s questions are not available already, they can scroll down to the contact us options and reach out to us for more information,” she stated.
She also added that they hope to expand their scope through their website and reach more people.
