The National Council of Persons with Disabilities has launched the process of putting together the first sign language dictionary in the country.

The process started last Friday with the commencement of a training programme for trainers, who will be deployed to various institutions such as schools and hospitals to train teachers and health workers on how to communicate to people with hearing impairment.

About 50,000 Rwandans are deaf and risk missing out on important information due to absence of qualified sign language experts and a harmonized dictionary.

Training of sign language interpreters to align the language with Rwandan culture is expected to enable this category of Rwandans follow and participate in national discussions and development programmes.

The dictionary is expected to be ready by 2016, officials said. It will be used by all Rwandans, including those with no hearing impairments, so as to help them communicate with the deaf. It will particularly be useful in schools, courts, police and hospitals among others.

"We hope to organise courses that will help us train the trainers from each institution to ensure that we get highly qualified trainers of sign languages in the country. We have quite a number of schools for the deaf; we are therefore going to equip them with more dictionaries so that their expertise in sign language is improved he notes,” said OswaldTuyizere, Oswald the director of economic and social empowerment unit at the National Council of Persons with Disabilities.

Tuyizere says that they still have some challenges and these include lack of qualified interpreters and dissemination materials such as DVDS, CD and booklets.