The Ministry of Social and Family Development has commenced an online sign language course aimed at providing more facilities for the hearing impaired to access services from state institutions.
The ministry told PSM News that a total of 100 people have participated in the first two batches of the course and that more than 200 applications were received. The ministry discloses that the course will be conducted for the next four weeks and participants can log in at their own convenience to complete the given works within a set time frame.
The first round of the course was open to government ministries, various agencies and companies. The ministry said the opportunity to participate in the upcoming batches is now open to councils. The ministry states that the opportunity to participate in the course will be opened to the public in the future.
The ministry noted that there are about 1,500 hearing impaired people in the Maldives. The biggest difficulty faced by them when attaining services from government institutions is difficulties in communication.