#SilentWalk: Silently coming together at Zoo Lake Sports Club for a good cause
PARKWOOD – Hundreds of Joburgers came together at the Zoo Lake Sports Club to partake in the Silent Walk as a way of putting themselves in the position of those who are hard of hearing.
A number of Johannesburg residents gathered at the Zoo Lake Sports Club in Parkwood to participate in the Silent Walk. The second annual walk was hosted by the City of Johannesburg’s Department of Social Development in partnership with DeafSA, Royalty Communications and Joburg Disability Forum.
According to the MMC for Health and Social Development, Dr Mpho Phalatse, the aim was to create awareness around the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. “They struggle integrating into society, participating in normal civil duties. So, this is to help the hearing community better understand and accommodate the hard-of-hearing community by reaching out through learning sign language for instance,” she said.
The MMC said she was happy to see the same crowds from last year, who are nation builders and upholders of this year’s theme ‘with sign language, everyone is included’. “There is only so much the City can do without the help of other stakeholders. Since we had the walk last year, we’ve managed to do sign language training for family members of people who are deaf and the plan going forward is to train some of our frontline service officials, for instance, clinics.”
General Riah Phiyega, who is the CEO of Safer SA Foundation, said as the first-time partner in the walk, their focus was on mobilising communities to take part in safety initiatives. “We realised that the deaf people are a vulnerable group in the community and one can only imagine what they go through. With high crime rates, they tend to fall victim without the ability to communicate effectively, therefore, we aim to build awareness around them.”
Phiyega added that the foundation in conjunction with the police ensured their visibility in bringing social education as well as participating in such walks to run community justice programmes.
Ndlodlwana said above everything, the aim is to make the hard-of-hearing people as well as other perceived disabled people a part of the community.
Details: City of Joburg’s Disability Office 011 407 7342; Zoo Lake Sports Club 011 646 3440.
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