Cosmetology classes for the Deaf – giving children a chance at independence

Nov 07, 2010 News

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By Crystal Conway

The teachers and teaching assistants at the David Rose School for the Handicapped don’t believe that being deaf or mentally impaired should keep a person from being a productive member of society and they certainly work hard to prove it.
At the school, children (some close to legal adulthood) are divided into two groups, Hearing Impaired and Intellectually Impaired. They are given classes in a number of activities based on their abilities and levels of development, but these children are at present unable to write any of the common examinations that will allow them to go out into the world of work and earn a salary.

Many will receive enough training to ensure that numeracy and literacy skills are learnt if possible but their possibilities for work are slim.
Yet for over a year now, the school has been undertaking a class that could see more of their students moving closer to self-sufficiency and independence after they would have left the protection of their respective homes.
Six years ago, when Sophia Joseph’s daughter became a student of the David Rose School, the woman found that she could not sit at home and do nothing so she decided to become a volunteer at the school.
Going through the necessary channels, she soon began offering her services to the teachers at the school as a volunteer teaching assistant. The needs of the children catered for at the school call for each class to have additional persons aiding the teachers, they also dictate smaller teacher to pupil ratios.
Just around mid last year, the school began offering a course in Cosmetology, which Sophia instructs with the assistance of a young woman named Rayanne Charles. Both of the women have been professionally trained in cosmetology and at least three days a week they pass the skills of the trade on to about 24 students, albeit not with all of the students in the same session.
Sophia says that she focuses on the teenagers, trying to give the young women the opportunity to learn a trade.
The students are instructed in all manner of hair care, from shampooing, steaming and relaxing to styling in most of the popular designs such as twists, wraps and braiding.
She says that the girls should be able to give any woman the same services that she would get if she went to a regular salon. Other beauty treatments are also taught in the class – there are manicures and pedicures, facials and even the application of acrylic and the airbrushing of nails to go with the hand and foot treatments.
Despite the fact that the majority of the students in the cosmetology class are girls, this hasn’t stopped the guys from seizing the opportunity to learn the trade either. There are two boys currently taking instructions in the course, Kosan and Doodnauth, both 16 years old and training to be barbers.
They were not in the class on the day that Kaieteur News dropped in because they were slated to be learning how to cook.
According to teachers at the school, when the class got off the ground last year, one of the biggest contributors to the programme was Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Priya Manickchand, who donated supplies and equipment to the school.
Aside from the donations, the students and teachers of the course try to help themselves by having small fundraising activities whenever they can. Despite all of their efforts however, Sophia pointed out that there were still some basic necessities that were missing which would make it better for the children in the class.
For starters, the salon sink that was installed in the classroom to allow hair washing does not have running water. As such, the girls have to dip the water from a tub to wash hair. Their air gun which is used to apply designs to nails is currently broken and according to Sophia, they will always need more beauty supplies and products to undertake exercises in the class.

She also pointed out that they needed tables where the girls can work on manicures, a facial spa, electric kettle and at least one more salon/barbershop chair.
The students communicate with hand signals and sign-language and the occasional attempt at speech. For all that, they conduct their tasks with efficient and sure movements, rarely having to be given an instruction twice.
Present in the class was a former student of the school, 20-year-old Somalia who came back to be a part of the programme when she heard about it.
According to Sophia, the class instructor, she has been informed by the parents of several students that they are using their newfound skills at home to earn themselves a ‘pocket-piece’.
Like many of the other teachers at the school, Sophia says that her students are tractable and willing; they are always happy to learn something new especially if it is a physical task that they can easily master by repetition.
And like many others who work with children who are disabled to some degree or another, she is quick to point out that they are all full of love and a joy to be around.

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