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From:
Valerie Sutton Date: Sat Jan 9, 1999 11:20 pm Subject: SW Report About Nicaragua | |
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SW Report About Nicaragua January 9, 1999 I have some news to report about SignWriting in Nicaragua... I received a telephone call from James Shepard-Kegl last week. I was so excited to hear from James, because we have missed his energetic postings to the SignWriting List lately, and I was wondering how they were doing with the terrible floods in Nicaragua. For those new to the List, James and Judy Shepard Kegl are Americans who founded a school for Deaf children in Bluefields, Nicaragua, which is on the eastern coast of the country, a very poverty-stricken area. They have used SignWriting in the Bluefields school for several years now, and Deaf children are becoming fluent in reading and writing Nicaraguan signs. They continue to develop more written literature in Nicaraugan Sign Language. They are translating Moby Dick right now (can you believe)! And some students are becoming skilled at typing with SignWriter 4.3 too. Meanwhile...you may remember the terrible floods that occurred in western Nicaragua and Honduras in 1998? Many people died, and James and Judy collected funds and then James flew to a western Nicaraguan city, a small rural town near Honduras, and he gathered deaf people together there...and guess what?! They founded a second school for the deaf! This was in November, 1998. And, they started teaching them SignWriting immediately...and James told me on the phone that the new deaf students learned it quickly and love it. They are already reading because of the enthusiasm from the other students. In summary, this is what has happened since October...James flew to flood ravaged Nicaragua and went up in the hills to find deaf people...they established a new school there....they started teaching them signs and SignWriting immediately...they flew some of those deaf students to Bluefields on the other side of the country so that the new deaf students could attend class with the students in Bluefields...they started their winter schedule of classes in Bluefields on schedule, even with all this confusion...and on top of all that...back in the USA, James and Judy moved their residence of many years in New Jersey, up to snowy cold Maine, where they now will be working with the Deaf Community there, whenever they are not in Nicaragua! From floods to snow...gosh ...what amazing people :-) So when James returns from the winter semester of school in Bluefields in a few months, we will hear from him on the SignWriting List again. I am looking forward to what he has to say about the new students learning SignWriting. James and I only had a ten minute conversation on the phone. I sat in silence after we hung up, thinking of the miracle - that SignWriting was being used in the hills of Nicaragua... You can read more on the web: SignWriting In Nicaragua https://www.SignWriting.org/sw109.html There is also a linguistic research study, posted in its entirety on the web: Literacy In Nicaraguan Sign Language https://www.SignWriting.org/rese003.html ________________________________ Valerie :-) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Valerie Sutton at the DAC Deaf Action Committee for SW SignWriting https://www.SignWriting.org Center For Sutton Movement Writing an educational nonprofit organization Box 517, La Jolla, CA, 92038-0517, USA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
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