Blog

by VOICES FROM THE MIDDLE EAST.

The "Effetà Paul VI" Institute in Bethlehem, a specialized school for the phonetic reeducation of hearing-impaired children in Palestine, was inaugurated on June 30, 1971. Its origin, however, is rooted in a historical moment, that of St. Paul VI's trip to the Holy Land in 1964. It was a truly unforgettable event, since he was the first pope to return to where everything for Christians had begun. During the trip, Paul VI had the opportunity to note the presence of a large number of deaf children who did not receive adequate assistance and expressed the desire that a work intended for their rehabilitation be born. The construction of the Institute took six years until, precisely after the inauguration, it could open, entrusted to the care of the Sisters Teachers of Saint Dorothy, Daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Vicenza, who had been active in the Holy Land since 1927.

The name of the school is based on a passage from the Gospel according to Mark (7:32-37), "And they brought to him a deaf-mute, begging him to lay his hand on him. And bringing him aside away from the crowd, he put his fingers in his ears, and with saliva touched his tongue; then looking up to heaven, he uttered a sigh and said, "Effatá" that is, "Open!" And immediately his ears were opened, and the knot of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke correctly."

The now fifty-year adventure of the Effetà Institute concretely began on September 6, 1971, when twenty-four hearing-impaired children began the audiophonetic rehabilitation program with a school curriculum that, according to the regulations, provided for completion at the sixth grade. Since then, initiatives have multiplied. A few years later, and until 1996, a three-year course in cutting and sewing was activated. In 1997, a two-year secretarial diploma course began through the study of computer science and some complementary subjects such as Arabic, English and humanities. Since 2003, based on the legislation on the extension of compulsory schooling to age 16, the institute has started Project M, that is, the secondary middle school cycle, reaching the tenth grade stage.

Today, in an age of rapid cultural and technological change, such a curriculum is insufficient both from the point of view of audiophonetic reeducation and from the cultural point of view, because it does not complete the basic training valid for entry into the world of work for which attendance up to the twelfth year and the acquisition of a degree formally justifying the education acquired are required. The School is therefore now committed to elevating its educational and cultural offerings until this goal is achieved.

Effetà Institute welcomes about 150 hearing-impaired children of all religions each year, constituting in fact, in its daily experience, a place of education for coexistence and mutual tolerance. The pupils come from different parts of Palestine: Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour and surrounding areas, Ramallah, Hebron and nearby villages (10 kilometers from Bethlehem), and Jericho (45 kilometers from Bethlehem). Children from the Jerusalem region and the North are excluded because of transportation and passage problems due to the security wall separating Israel from Palestine, surrounding and closing off the city of Bethlehem almost entirely. All students return daily to their families except for about 20 female pupils who, due to the distance of their place of residence from the school, live inside the facility.

Most pupils are fitted with behind-the-ear hearing aids that amplify auditory signals and, with specific reeducation, help them to perceive sounds and noises, discriminate words and simple sentences in relation to the degree of hearing loss. A small number of schoolchildren benefit instead from a cochlear implant. This neuroprosthesis is indicated for children with profound deafness; the implant replaces the cochlea, the organ of hearing, by converting sounds from the environment into electrical signals and sending them directly to the auditory nerve. A special rehabilitation program is provided for children who use this aid.

Noting, during his 1964 trip, the large number of hearing-impaired children, Pope Paul VI highlighted a sad feature of Palestinian society. Worldwide, one in a thousand children is born totally or partially hearing-impaired, and partial or complete deafness is the most widespread sensory impairment among humans, reaching 1 in 10 people over a lifetime. In Palestine, unfortunately, 3% of the population is hearing impaired. In some particularly isolated villages the percentage rises to 15% of the inhabitants, ranking among the highest in the world. The prevalence of deafness in our area can almost entirely be attributed to genetic inheritance and not to trauma or infections that occurred in childhood. In the Palestinian Territories about 40% of marriages are endogamic, i.e., arranged within the extended family or directly between first cousins, which increases the likelihood of genetic deficiency in unborn children.

Deafness can be accompanied by numerous consequences on the psychological and social level of the individual. A hearing-impaired individual may experience learning difficulties if he or she is not followed in the process of schooling, and may have problems with socialization if he or she is not helped to integrate into the community and the world of work. To all this must also be added the set of social, psychological and economic problems that the Palestinian population is facing, especially since the second Intifada of September 2000. In Palestine, hearing-impaired children are often unable to avail themselves of care and help services. This is not only due to the insufficiency of public facilities or the difficulties in accessing them, but also to the fact that the local culture still lacks information and sensitivity to these issues.

Through gradual and progressive proposals, each pupil at Effetà Institute is helped to relate to others, communicate appropriately and integrate into society. The method used by Effetà's speech therapists, teachers and educators is defined as "oral". From the earliest years, an attempt is made to therapeutically teach the child language with acoustic training, taking advantage of existing auditory residuals, a labio-reading and an imitation of the articulation of speech itself. Subsequently, the child is accompanied in the acquisition of increasingly articulate language competence, including the ability to understand the grammatical and syntactic structure of the sentence and its meaning.

The "Effetà Paul VI" Institute has: an early intervention outpatient service, a preschool, compulsory school, a social work desk, several individual speech therapy workshops and a Residential Center. The Institute also holds regular training meetings for parents. Still in charge of the Institute are the Dorothean Sisters, Daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Vicenza, who are financially assisted by CNEWA (Catholic Association of Assistance for the Middle East), which operates locally through P.M. (Pontifical Mission). The management team of the "Effetà Paul VI" Institute is supported by a social worker and a pedagogical and audiological consultant. Re-educational and formative intervention is offered by both lay and religious teachers, educators and speech therapists, local and non-local.