Peace Corps volunteer teaching sign language classes at IDCE

The Deaf Association has announced that Erin Sullivan, a Peace Corps Response Volunteer who will be attached to its offices for one year, will be conducting sign language classes at the IDCE.

Sullivan is an experienced sign language teacher in the USA and is well qualified to raise sign language teaching in Guyana to a new level, the group said in a press release.

In this regard, she will build on the work started last year by a previous Peace Corps volunteer and will conduct the classes at the Institute of Distance and Continuing Education in the Queens College compound. Sullivan also will work with deaf students and their teachers at two special needs schools, at the Tuschen Deaf Academy and she will be involved in all activities of Deaf Theatre Guyana, culminating in the Association’s annual signature event at the National Cultural Centre in September.

Through Sullivan’s intervention at this year’s leadership camp GLOW – Girls Lead Our World – a number of deaf youths will be participating in this year’s activities. Camp GLOW prepares girls to adopt leadership roles among their peers and in their communities, the release said. “Deaf leadership is an approach that is only now gaining momentum in Guyana; it is more widely put into practice in other countries of the region,” the release said.

Persons interested in sign language classes (level 1 or 2) can contact the IDCE at 227-0407 or the Deaf Association at 225- 4489. Classes will start on May 19 and 20.