It’s raining in Bata, a port city in Equatorial Guinea. The heavy rain makes a thunderous noise as it strikes the tin roof of the La Fe school. Inside, however, no one appears to notice or care. The teacher continues to explain equations while the students fix their gaze on the movement of his hands and the shapes formed by his fingers, so as not to lose the thread. Only when the water begins to seep into the classroom and the first drops fall on the students’ maths notebooks do they notice the deluge. Pilar Bilogo, headteacher of this school for the deaf, picks up the phone and makes a call. It’s yet another challenge facing this school for the deaf.
Pilar Bilogo, chez elle, avec certains des jeunes qu’elle accueille. Six enfants sourds et un enfant muet souffrant de troubles psychiques partagent sa vie. Pilar les nourrit, les habille et les éduque sans recevoir une quelconque aide. « La raison pour laquelle j’accepte encore des élèves en cours et des enfants à la maison, la raison qui m’empêche de dire non, c’est l’abandon familial et l’isolement dont souffrent les enfants sourds dans mon pays », déclare-t-elle.
Equatorial Guinea, a small country on the west coast of Africa, has 1.5 million inhabitants and only three schools for the deaf. Bata, its commercial capital, is home to two : La Fe and Manos Felices (with 80 and 50 students, respectively). The third school, run by the Red Cross, is located in the capital city of Malabo.
Bilogo, who understands the urgency of educating deaf children as early as possible, founded the La Fe school in 2013 to provide affordable schooling to students with special education needs. Most significantly, La Fe became the first school in the country to accept deaf pupils over the age of seven with no previous training in sign language.
Lucía et un élève d’un autre cours communiquent à distance en langue des signes. Le pays ne dispose pas de données officielles sur le nombre d’enfants sourds (et, par conséquent, ceux d’entre eux qui ne sont pas scolarisés).
According to the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) : “The key is to make sure that deaf children are exposed to sign language as early as possible”. As Stefania Fadda, president of the European Society for Mental Health and Deafness, explains : “Exposing deaf children to an effective and early form of communication, either spoken or sign language or both [bilingualism], greatly reduces stress and discomfort [which can in turn be a source of] suffering, identity disturbance and psychiatric disorders”.
Emanuel, 9 ans, chez Pilar Bilogo, où il habite. Emanuel est muet, orphelin, il souffre d’un trouble mental qui n’est pas traité par manque de moyens économiques. Emanuel ne peut bénéficier d’aucune ressource éducative dans sa ville.
As is the case in many African nations, being deaf in Equatorial Guinea means facing isolation and abandonment by family members. Particularly in the country’s interior regions, it is still widely believed that the mothers of deaf children had a spell placed on them during pregnancy and that their newborn children are cursed as a result. Young people grow up with this stigma and bear the burden of it throughout their lives, as do their mothers.
Lucía, une élève sourde de l’école La Fe, attend l’arrivée de l’enseignante. Cette adolescente ne reçoit aucun traitement pour sa déficience auditive étant donné que le système de santé de Guinée équatoriale ne prévoit pas de couverture médicale gratuite pour ce type de handicap.
Hearing loss is more prevalent in poor countries. “In the most disadvantaged and poor areas of Africa, children with deafness run the risk of not developing an adequate language and not having access to education, and therefore becoming socially excluded, lonely and isolated adults,” says Fadda. According to the WHO, nearly 80 per cent of people with disabling hearing loss live in low- and middle-income countries.
Access to care also plays a role : 78 per cent of low-income countries have fewer than one ear, nose and throat specialist for every one million people ; 93 per cent have fewer than one audiologist for every million people, and only 50 per cent have at least one teacher of the deaf.
Des étudiants assistent à un cours à l’école La Fe. La Convention relative aux droits des personnes handicapées contraint les États Parties à employer des enseignants maîtrisant la langue des signes. La Guinée équatoriale n’a pas ratifié cette convention.
In order to provide guidance to countries in integrating ear and hearing care into their national health plans, the WHO created the World Report on Hearing in 2021. The report states that “lack of accurate information and stigmatising mindsets surrounding ear diseases and hearing loss often limit people’s access to care for these conditions”.
In 2021, 1.5 billion people worldwide were living with some degree of hearing loss and 430 million were in need of rehabilitation services. Even more alarming, the WHO predicts that by 2050, one in four people will be living with some degree of hearing loss and 700 million will need care and rehabilitation services.
Un étudiant à besoins éducatifs spéciaux écrit sur son cahier. Bien que la Loi générale de l’éducation de la Guinée équatoriale stipule dans son article 57 que le Système national d’éducation doit se doter d’enseignants qualifiés et de moyens et matériels didactiques permettant la participation des étudiants handicapés au processus d’apprentissage, le pays n’a pas d’enseignants qualifiés pour les apprenants à besoins éducatifs spéciaux.
Deaf people suffer from isolation and struggle to adapt in environments where the majority of people are hearing. According to the mental health and hearing impairment unit of the Basque Country in Spain : “Isolation itself has been identified as the cause of mental illness in these patients”. Isolation starts in the family, as 90 to 95 per cent of deaf children are born to hearing parents.
Gael, un étudiant de 23 ans à besoins éducatifs spéciaux, assiste à un cours. À cinq mois, Gael est resté quatre jours dans le coma et on lui a diagnostiqué une aphasie totale. Ce diagnostic n’était cependant pas concluant et les médecins qui l’avaient examiné avaient suggéré des examens complémentaires dans un centre médical mieux équipé à l’étranger.
Rubella, meningitis, measles and mumps can cause hearing loss. According to the WHO, most of these diseases can be prevented by vaccination.
Benedicta, enseignante de l’école La Fe, pendant un cours.
“While there is a legal framework on special education needs, there is no evidence of institutional mechanisms and operations aimed at its implementation,” Santiago Bivini Mangué, secretary general of the Equatorial Guinea National Commission for UNESCO, explains in a documentary entitled Necesidades Educativas Especiales en Guinea Ecuatorial. The legal framework to which he refers is the current General Education Law, several articles of which stipulate the need for educational opportunities for people with disabilities. Currently, all educational centres for the deaf in the country are either private initiatives or run by a charity.
Remigio Agustín, étudiant en électricité à l’Université nationale de Guinée équatoriale (UNGE), le premier jour de cours de l’année scolaire 2021-22 à l’école La Fe : « Cela fait trois ans déjà que je travaille comme enseignant bénévole, et je tiens à continuer de me former et de collaborer à ce projet », raconte-t-il.
According to the NGO Deaf Child Worldwide, there are 8.9 million deaf children in sub-Saharan Africa. Equatorial Guinea still has no pedagogical guide for developing a special education curriculum and most Equatoguinean institutions rely on regular education guides. According to a 2015 UNICEF report on the state of special education in Equatorial Guinea, only 2 per cent of teachers for students with special educational needs have a technical level in special education. The organisation also found that 90 per cent of teachers experience difficulties in dealing with students with these needs.
“Deaf children face barriers in education if teachers and peers are not fluent in sign language that can result in illiteracy,” warns the WFD.
Bus scolaire de La Fe, immobilisé lorsque les fonds viennent à manquer. Quand il peut rouler, le chauffeur va chercher les élèves et les ramène à la maison.
Pilar’s work has finally paid off. Following a meeting last October with the country’s Minister of Social Affairs and Gender Equality, Consuelo Nguema, the latter pledged to build a new centre for the La Fe school, due to be built in two years’ time. In the meantime, the school has paid two months’ rent for a temporary centre. For now, the new centre remains only a promise. If unfulfilled, it would leave more than 100 deaf children in Bata without schooling.
