Partners

Sign Languages are visual-gestural manual languages that use movements of the hands, facial expressions, and head/body positions to convey linguistic messages and are very crucial for the deaf population. The deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals in India face major challenges, one among them is the lack of accessibility in the education system. Signing Hands Foundation (SHF) was founded with the mission of providing accessible education to the Deaf community through the use of technology and sign language.

Since its inception, SHF has launched two main projects – ISH Shiksha and ISH Kids. ISH Shiksha runs two courses, one in Indian Sign Language for the hearing, and an English language course for deaf individuals. ISH Kids creates educational content for both deaf and hearing children in India.

Project with MHI:

Singing Hands Foundation has identified that within the larger gap in Education and accessibility for deaf children, the availability for educational content for young deaf children is missing. Whereas hearing children have a dearth of audio and visual content available for their early learning and development in the forms of riddles, poems, songs and stories, there are no such resources available for deaf children. Working on this, in extension to their project ISH Kids, This is an integral part of a child’s development, and lack of such material leads to slower development. MHI and SHF have partnered for the project “Education and Awareness for the
Deaf Community” starting in May 2023. SHF will be creating 10 stories of 5 minutes each in Indian Sign Language for children under the age of 5. These stories will be accessible to both deaf and hearing children and will be posted on ISH Kids YouTube channel.

For more information, please visit their website here.