Theater for deaf children, Bolivia

Theater for deaf children, Bolivia


F.A.N.S. (Formación Artística para Niños Sordos) is an institute for artistic formation for deaf children in Cochabamba, Bolivia. FANS is founded by a Dutch drama- and musicteacher who puts all her time and energy in this project.

In Bolivia one does not have many facts about people with hearing problems. Educated guesses estimate that 8% of the people over 50 years old are (almost) deaf, but nobody knows how many children are deaf. One of the reasons for this is that the parents of these children often do not know about special possibilities for them, or are too ashamed or too poor to send their children to school at all.
Those that do go to special schools have four deaf institutes to choose from. These are however incomparable to Western European institutes. The groups consist of children of different ages, often on a different cognitive, social-emotional and locomotory level. Some of them have other physical or psychological problems as well. Looked at through European eyes they would not be in the same groups, maybe not even at the same school.

There is not much knowledge about education for the deaf; there are hardly any specialists in logopaedics or sign language. Neither is there communication between the institutes that have different systems as well. Often the children learn to "write" by copying text without understanding it. In the best cases they learn sign language and speaking is ignored. In other cases sign language is not taught and not allowed and they try to teach the children - often at a late age - to speak, which is not very successful. These children have no language at all, and this results in a big lag in cognitive, emotional, social and motory development. It is frustrating - to put it mildly - if all day long you are unable to understand what it is they want from you and are punished for making "mistakes"you did not know you were making.

Lack of money, time, experience and teachers also means there is hardly or no attention for art classes. By founding an art-school for deaf children, and giving intensive attention to drama, dance, music and drawing the FANS-project offers education that stimulates the children in developing creative and communicative abilities, thus learning them to know their own possibilities. The focus lays not on hearing or speaking but on all other means of communicating.

This way the F.A.N.S.-project wants to give the children a more positive self-image, increasing their concentration-powers, train their memories, learn them to work together and actively work on having a "language" (movement, signs, images, written language and if possible spoken language). This will stimulate the children in self-reliance and active participation in the emancipation of the deaf.

The first year was big success. A team of six hearing and one deaf teacher was trained in working with deaf children; part of the training was learning sign language. In phase one of the project the children attend weekly workshops of the teachers of FANS (mime, dance, drawing, drama, music) at their own schools. Over 120 children - aged between 4 and 12 - participated. Everywhere they started by learning their own name-sign. At the schools where sign language is ignored children don't even really know their own names, because they can't write and never hear their names. Having your own name-sign is therefore of utmost importance to the children, it says something about who you are.
Part of children goes on to phase two: the making of a theatre production that is shown at the end of the year in the biggest theatre of the city. The training is done at the art-school Juan Sebastian Bach in Cochabamba that has five rooms adapted for the deaf e.g. stronger lights in the rooms with no daylight (if it is too dark you can't "hear" each other). The children like it so much that they come as early possible to the lessons, often way before the time they are expected. They laughed so much that belly-ache became an often heard complaint…

Both actors and audience enjoyed the shows. The actors spoke in sign-language that was simultaneously translated into Spanish so that both deaf and hearing people could come to the theatre. All three shows were fully booked. Hearing people were impressed by the quality and by the way the deaf can communicate over a big distance (as long as the lights are still on). And nearly all the deaf of the region must have come to the theatre because there was a lot of hand flapping (applause sign) in the audience. Most important of all: all 26 young actors went through a metamorphose concerning their self-image!

FANS is almost completely dependent on donations and - being a relatively small private initiative - has trouble finding them. (Didactic material, all costumes, decors, the rent of the theatre with light- and sound equipment and the travel expenses of the children total US$2000,- in 2001 and again in 2002 ) 

TOTAL € 2.000,--