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Maria Chiguvari
ZIMBABWEANS should recognise and provide full support for artists with disabilities, a Minister has said.
Deputy Minister of Sports, Recreation, Arts and Culture, Emily Jesaya, was speaking during the opening of a “Stories from Zimbabwe — Ngano from the Zimbabwe Deaf Trust” event yesterday.
“As a Ministry, we call upon all members of our society to recognise and support artists with disabilities, particularly deaf artists.
“They are usually left behind as most established artists and media tend not to involve them.
“The National Constitution recognises Zimbabwe Sign Language as one of the officially recognised languages.
“As the Government, we wish to continually promote the use of Zimbabwe Sign Language in all its cultural perspectives to uphold and continually drive the rights of deaf people so that, like everyone else, they fully enjoy their cultural and artistic life.
“We are proudly launching stories that are designed and meant to bridge the gap between deaf children and deaf people in general who have for a long time been left behind in terms of Zimbabwean cultural life, most of them had no ways and means of benefiting and enjoying from ‘ngano’ or folk-tales due to communication barriers.”
She added:
“I stand today, proud of our deaf artists’ achievement and the achievements of those artists with disabilities who have worked relentlessly to make these ngano into beautiful artistic work that we are all in awe of.
“Therefore, we are here today to witness the discovery of amazing talents from our deaf communities and those with disabilities at large.
“I wish to commend Zimbabwe Deaf Media Trust for taking the initiative to translate the Ngano into Sign Language.
“This puts the Zimbabwe Deaf Trust in the vanguard of supporting the Government in ensuring that ‘no deaf person, no artist with disability and no place is left behind as we march towards Vision 2030.’”
Online Reporter