MISS RWANDA 2021 Grace Ingabire has said that more efforts are needed to successfully scale up the inclusion of people with hearing and speaking impairments in the society.

Ingabire was speaking at a conference organised by Patriotism Organisation Rwanda, a national youth-led organisation working to promote inclusive sustainable development, in collaboration with Rwanda National Union if the Deaf (RNUD), as part of the discussions held during the official launch of the International Deaf Week 2021.

Held under the theme "Cherishing the deaf history", the week-long campaign is being celebrated on the national level to acknowledge the presence of the deaf community and reflect on the challenges facing people with hearing impairments.

While making her case for the inclusion of people with speaking and hearing impairments, Ingabire said that society still have a long way to go in terms of inclusiveness of people with disabilities in the society.  

"The biggest problem that is barring effective inclusion of people with hearing and speaking impairments is the mindset. We need to understand that we are complementing each other. I might have something that a deaf person does not have and vice versa because we are humans created in a different way,” she noted.

She said that more efforts must be invested in changing the mindset of the young generation to successfully prepare an inclusive community in the future.

"My plea to fellow youth is to focus on our abilities other than our disabilities and to bring all people together to ensure the social-economic development of our country, remembering that we the young people are the future leaders of our country,” Ingabire said.

According to the beauty queen, the same should apply in the entertainment sector to ensure that people with hearing and speaking impairments  feel free to showcase their talents and independently communicate through arts.

"We want to see deaf people included in entertainment activities, it has to be normal that they feel included in every aspect of their lives,” she said.

According to statistics from RNUD, over 70,000 people have hearing and speech impairment in the country.

While people with hearing and speaking impairments are appealing to the Government to include sign language as Rwanda’s fifth official language, Ingabire encourages people, especially the young community to learn sign language so they can smoothly communicate with deaf people in a language they can understand.

"The youth are the future leaders. Therefore, there is a need to put more effort into learning sign language in order to ascertain the inclusivity of all individuals including people with disabilities,” she said.  

Including sign language as an official language will, according to RNUD Executive Secretary, Samuel Munana, enable inclusion of people with hearing and speaking impairment in national programmes.