Susana Stiglich from Peru became the third recipient of the International Deaf Education and Advancement Fund scholarship in the spring semester of 1997. Prior to obtaining the I-DEAF scholarship, Stiglich graduated from Gallaudet in 1996 with a BA in Early Education. The I-DEAF scholarship helped her finish her masters degree in Family Centered Early Childhood Education in 1998. She has now returned to Lima, Peru, where she hopes to be able to establish a program for local parents of deaf children.
Hello Andrea,
Finally I have computer at home and a new email address.
I just posted a new email in the
deafintl mailing list.
Let me tell you that I enjoyed reading the list but I was unable
to participate because of limited access. Now that won't be a
problem.
I wanted to write to you about what I have been doing here so far. First of all thank you for the financial support I-DEAF has provided me and other international students. The financial support allowed me to finish graduate school.
I graduated from Gallaudet University in 1996 with a Early Childhood Education major. Then again in 1998 with a masters in Family Centered Early Childhood Education. I moved back to Lima last August 1998. The first months were very difficult because I had not lived in my country for ten years (I had visited several times, but living here is different). I have been trying to find a job here. It is difficult because the school year is different here. The new school year starts in March/April and ends in December. That means I have to wait until next year to get a teaching job.
What I have been doing here so far is visiting and volunteering at several schools with deaf children and one school with deaf-blind children too. Another thing I did was prepare a seminar for the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru (a prestigious university in Lima) and taught a one day seminar last Saturday November 28th. It was a success. About 50 people attended. The seminar was directed to families with deaf children, the deaf community, professionals in the field, and students. It came out to be very good.
Prior to this seminar, I was interviewed by two different national magazines, Caretas, and Somos. Also I was interviewed on national radio the day before. This publicity helped people be more aware of the seminar and about deaf people.
I am interested in establishing an early intervention program and have been working on several projects related to this. Now, as a result of the seminar, I want to set up a association for parents of deaf children similar to the American Society for Deaf children (in which families are the active participants) in order to provide support, information, and advocacy.
There are many schools for the deaf here in Lima. Most of them follow the oral method still. Very few of them use total communication. The sign language of Peru has not been studied or recognized nationwide, and the interesting thing is that there are different groups of deaf people that do sign differently. There is an American pastor here that teaches them in American Sign Language. As a result, many people here use a mixture of different signs and always are arguing about what is the right way to sign this word. The deaf comunity here is large and I see lots of people motivated to start something new.
One of the major problems in Peru is education. Secondary education is not mandatory, therefore lots of people dont go to secondary schools (both hearing and deaf), as a result, there is a high incidence of iliterate adults. There are few high schools that provide secondary education for the deaf.
This page was last updated on 28 May 2002 by Andrea Shettle who can be reached at ashettle*patriot.net (please use an @ in place of the * in my email address, thank you)..