No Longer Hidden - a ministry to young deaf people
Submitted by FatherSean on Wed, 12/07/2011 - 20:01.
The obituary of the late Fr Shaun O'Donnell, who died on 2 December, mentions his ministry to young deaf and hearing-impaired people. Here is an article that he wrote about that during his time in the parish of Agusan, Cagayan de Oro City, and that was published in the September 2011 issue of The Far East, the magazine of the Columbans in Australia and New Zealand.
Where there was shame, now there is choice.
If you had asked me after three or four years whether there were any deaf people in my parish I would have responded that, ‘No, there were none.’
The thing is that for cultural reasons these special people were hidden away. Having a deaf person in the home was seen a shame on the family. If you visited a home where there was a deaf person they would be kept out of sight in the back room. You’d never find out that they were even there.
My inspiration for becoming involved with the deaf came through a friend and fellow-Columban, the late Fr Joe Coyle. His sister happened to be deaf and he had a great interest in people who were suffering from deafness and consequently could not speak.
Father Joe was from my hometown, Derry, in Ireland and when he went home on vacation he would go around and ask people if they had any old hearing aids, because, as well as those who are totally deaf, there are those who can hear with some help.
I was visiting him one time and he had an old hearing aid. He was with a little girl who had never heard in her life and Father Joe put the hearing aid into her ear and all of a sudden she began to jump up and down with joy. I will never forget her reaction, for her it was like a miracle.
What I saw of Father Joe’s involvement inspired me to do something myself. One day I was in the parish office and a deaf child came in and I decided to do something about it.
There was a fine young woman in the parish called Neeni and I asked her whether she would be interested in learning sign language. She said she would. Neeni took to signing quickly and learnt to use it well.
Then I decided to put up a notice advertising our intention to help deaf people and inviting the families to bring their deaf to us in the parish. If I remember rightly, two or three came and that changed everything. Neeni taught them sign language and it was just a revelation to me to see the change in these poor people who had spent their lives hidden away. Then of course, the numbers grew.
As the classes for the deaf gradually developed, we got the families involved and helped them see beyond their cultural prejudices regarding the deaf. Some even thought that the deafness was a punishment for some great sin and treated their deaf as pariahs.
Even the younger members of the family would treat a deaf aunt with disrespect. I remember a woman crying with remorse that she had been taught to regard her aunt as stupid and used to beat her.
Salving Tinsay Valderrama came from a well-known family in Bacolod City. She really helped us. She was gifted with empathy and skill in working with the deaf. For Salving the deaf were not just special children, they were special children of God. She began to organise a month-long summer session in a house on her family’s estate in Bukidnon, inland from our parish.
From then on the work with the deaf developed. Now it’s very much part of the Cagayan de Oro Archdiocesan Pastoral Care Programme. Today five parishes are working with the deaf.
