The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded Gallaudet University a $1.5 million cost extension for the Strengthening Deaf Education, Empowerment, and Employment (Deaf-E3) Activity in Nigeria. This will help build on the successes that the Deaf-E3 team has witnessed since beginning their work in May 2021, says Project Director Amanda Mueller.
Provost Khadijat K. Rashid, ’90, is the Executive Director of Deaf-E3 and Gallaudet in Nigeria-Africa, or GAIN. The mission of Deaf-E3 is to address the educational disparities and marginalization faced by deaf children and youth in Nigeria through a comprehensive approach. This includes the capacity building of deaf education professionals, interpreters, Deaf-led organizations such as the Nigerian National Association of the Deaf (NNAD), the Deaf Teachers Association of Nigeria (DTAN), and the Deaf Women’s Association of Nigeria (DWAN), and of USAID and its partners.
Read on for an inside look at Deaf-E3’s impressive work.
Empowering educators
Muhammad Haruna Tsafe, President of the NNAD, describes education for Deaf, hard of hearing, and Deafblind (D/HH/DB) Nigerians as hampered by several challenges. Non-signing administrators and teachers without a background in Deaf Education manage schools, and outdated pedagogies and curricula are not tailored to the needs of Nigerian D/HH/DB learners.
Deaf-E3’s training in Multilingual Multimodal Pedagogies (MMP) is combating this. Acting National President of DTAN, Dr. Tola Odusanya, ‘85 & G-’87 says training has equipped teachers with “modern and more effective methods of educating deaf and hard-of-hearing learners and [with] the possibilities of nurturing their learners to realize their full potentials to be fully equipped to favorably compete with their hearing peers in, and outside, the classroom.”
Temitope Olaniyi, Deaf-E3’s Deputy Chief of Party and previous in-country Teacher Lead agrees: “Over the past three years, I’ve witnessed a remarkable shift in attitudes and practices among Deaf educators across various schools. It’s been truly inspiring to see Deaf teachers not only embrace multilingual and multimodal pedagogies (MMP) but also recognize and affirm that Deaf children are naturally multilingual.”
For the first time, Olaniyi sees Deaf teachers confidently planning lessons to be more Deaf-centric, incorporating sign language and Deaf Studies objectives and tailoring them to the needs of Deaf learners. He was struck by a recent debate on what sign language should be used to teach: “Some were advocating for Sign Exact English (SEE), not realizing that SEE is not a language but rather a visual representation of English. At that moment, Deaf teachers who participated in MMP Training stepped forward with confidence, leading the discussion and convincingly explaining why Nigerian Sign Language—and by extension, Hausa Sign Language—deserve recognition and should be the medium of instruction in schools.” (Note: Hausa Sign Language is a sign language used by deaf communities in Northern Nigeria. Hausa is a spoken language that 40-50 million people use in Western and Central Africa.)
Olaniyi attributes this massive shift in perspective to the training he and others in the Deaf-E3 team conducted. “It’s heartwarming to see Deaf teachers championing these changes, taking ownership of their roles as leaders in education, and paving the way for a more inclusive and culturally affirming approach to teaching. It’s moments like these that remind me why this work matters so much,” he says.
All of those who have participated in Deaf-E3 have brought so much back to their communities. Mueller says. One such example is the MMP educators who organized parent engagement seminars, bringing together a total of 357 parents and caregivers looking to enhance their relationships with their Deaf children and improve their ability to use Nigerian Sign Language. One parent who attended a seminar shared, “I am so grateful for this opportunity. Before, I struggled to communicate with my 8-year-old Deaf child, but now I feel equipped to connect effectively.”
Building organizational capacity
Another prong of the project is to build capacity of local Deaf-led NGOs. Deaf-E3 brought in an international capacity-building consultant, Deaf Worlds (DDW), to provide training in effective operations, such as structured administration, community engagement, and human resource management.
Tsafe says NNAD struggled with access to resources and found its involvement with the Deaf-E3 project a way to grow its capacity. An organization dedicated to advocating for the rights of D/HH/DB people, NNAD applied its new skills to establish partnerships with Nigerian institutions and advocated for educational institutions to provide reasonable accommodation to D/HH/DB students. The Vice-Chancellors of these institutions were convinced and are now working towards implementation. NNAD went further with its advocacy in Bayero University Kano, in northwest Nigeria, and developed a new partnership with Nasarawa State University, Keffi, in central Nigeria.
Hellen Beyioke-Alase, president of DWAN, says that the targeted capacity-building workshops and data analysis training have equipped “Deaf women across Nigeria with the tools and confidence to self-advocate and drive the push for a more inclusive and equitable society.” Odusanya noted similar benefits, noting that DTAN leaders “exhibited more passion and coordination in their functions after the capacity-building training. This, I strongly believe, will have a long-lasting positive impact on the Association beyond the next set of executives.”
Making local-to-global connections
Involvement in Deaf-E3 has also given these local organizations access to higher-level platforms. Beyioke-Alase points to one such instance: DWAN facilitated a workshop, “Advancing Gender Equity and the Deaf Community,” in which Deaf women shared their lived experiences and challenges with USAID leadership, resulting in meaningful conversations.
Through Deaf-E3 support, NNAD organized the Second National Summit on Deaf
Education, involving participants from across Nigeria and other African countries. One of the outcomes is that for the first time, USAID invited NNAD to the Private Sectors Roundtable Meeting organized in Lagos. “This has given us a platform to interact and network with the key private sectors aiming to attract their corporate social responsibility interventions to the Deaf community in Nigeria,” Tsafe explains. He attributes many of NNAD’s recent successes to its involvement in the Deaf-E3 project and says he is “looking forward to an impactful and sustainable program ahead.”
The original three-year $2.065 million grant, Cooperative Agreement No. 72062021CA00003, from USAID ended in October. This extension – November 2024 to April 2026 – which comes from USAID’s Disability Program Funding, is a significant opportunity to sustain the momentum and deepen the foundation built over the last three years. “We get to continue to collaborate with a truly remarkable group of leaders and community members,” Mueller says. “It’s exciting to envision the transformative progress we will achieve together in this next phase.”
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