Mercy Sale wanted to study to be a computer scientist, but her Nigerian school told her she couldn’t do so because she was deaf.
In October 2019, Sale was part of a Deaf Technology Foundation team that flew to the Netherlands. The team was one of 10 teams from around the world competing for the Nothing About Us Without Us Award, which is given to nonprofit organizations that support marginalized and disadvantaged communities.
Why I wrote this
The story is
In Nigeria, deaf students often feel excluded from educational opportunities, but the Deaf Technology Foundation is seeing their potential.
“I started to see the benefits of where technology could take me,” said Sale, who now wants to become a web developer.
The Deaf Technology Foundation, co-founded by Uni Bitras in 2017, is helping to make dreams like Sale’s come true. It has started three coding and robotics clubs for deaf students in the Nigerian city of Jos, as well as one in Zamfara state and one in the capital, Abuja.
“This is what I love,” Bitras said, adding that he would like to eventually see his students mentor other students.
In a one-room apartment in Jos, Nigeria, instructor Uni Bitras and nearly a dozen students are huddled around a table cluttered with equipment: a toolbox, a 12-volt adapter, a coding panel, a set of jumper cables and wires of various colors. The students’ idea is to prototype a “smart” door that opens with the touch of a finger.
The students communicate in sign language, and Ms. Bitras signs back to them. The group discusses the use of Arduino, an open-source electronic platform, and one student wonders how fingerprints can be stored. Given Nigeria’s power issues, Ms. Bitras gently advises the group to start with a battery-powered keypad lock system and incorporate fingerprint functionality later.
“This works better than wasting time reinventing the wheel,” Bitrus says. The students nod in agreement and then excitedly get to work.
Why I wrote this
The story is
In Nigeria, deaf students often feel excluded from educational opportunities, but the Deaf Technology Foundation is seeing their potential.
It’s a typical afternoon at the club run by the Deaf Technology Foundation, a nonprofit that Bitrus co-founded in 2017. The organization trains deaf children and young people in Nigeria in computer programming and robotics. They also work on improving their reading skills and receive career guidance and counseling to help them feel more confident.
What drives Bitras? Compassion, he says, because being deaf in Nigeria is “limited in many ways.”
His desire to change the future of deaf and hard of hearing people in Nigeria began in 2014 when he met a 13-year-old girl while working as a teacher and part of the National Youth Service in Zamfara state. Realizing the discrimination she faced, Bitras decided to teach her sign language and how to use a computer. Three years later, he gathered resources, including funding from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and founded the Deaf Technology Foundation.
Call her Mama Robotics
One of the darkest memories that foundation course student Mercy Samson Grima has from her time growing up is looking at the faces of people around her and noticing the insults and negative energy directed towards her.
“It really hurt me because in my mind I thought I could do anything. They just see us as lesser people,” she said. “I wanted to show them that deaf people can be anything.”
(Bitras translated the students’ comments for this article.)
Grima said he was never formally taught sign language and little else at the private middle school he attended. But he did have one teacher who could sign and taught him. When Bitrus visited Grima’s school to promote the work of the Deaf Technology Foundation, Grima was happy to see that “he could sign, too.”
She dropped out in her third year because her parents couldn’t afford her tuition, but luckily she had already formed a bond with the Deaf Technology Foundation.
“I had never touched a laptop in my life,” she says. Now she wants to be a computer scientist and goes by the nickname Mama Robotics.
Five years ago, Grima and several other students drove from Jos to Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, to compete in MakeX, a robotics competition. The team practiced for about 18 hours, eventually building a robot that could perform tasks such as cleaning up trash in a model city. Grima’s team didn’t represent Nigeria at the international competition, but they did place fourth out of about 15 teams.
“We were the only team made up of deaf people,” Grima says, her eyes lighting up.
Her father, Grima Samson, added: “Their actions have changed her. There will come a day when we can no longer transport her here. [to the Deaf Technology Foundation for club activities]She is not happy. We are praying that God will open the doors for her and the other children to achieve something.”
Excluded from science
Marcy Sale wanted to study to be a computer scientist, but her school told her she couldn’t do that because she’s a deaf student.
In October 2019, Sale was part of a Deaf Technology Foundation team that flew to the Netherlands. The team was one of 10 teams from around the world competing for the Nothing About Us Without Us Award, which is given to nonprofit organizations that support marginalized and disadvantaged communities.
“I started to see the benefits of where technology could take me,” said Sale, who now wants to become a web developer.
Another student at the Deaf Technology Foundation, Joy Yusuf, wanted to become a doctor, but when she was transferred to a new school, even though it welcomed students with disabilities, the principal and staff told her she would not be able to become a doctor.
“It was a shock to me,” Yusuf said. “I cried. I had to call Bitras and my father and beg them. [the principal and staff] For me, Deaf Tech is: [studying] medicine.”
Now she wants to be a web developer too.
The Deaf Technology Foundation’s biggest challenge is a lack of funding. There are only two paid instructors in computer programming and robotics, and the number of students is growing. On average, 34 students attend classes four days a week, but that number rises to 70 on days when they don’t usually study. The students meet together twice a week to relax, and for sports and dance.
In addition to the three clubs it has set up in Jos, the foundation also has one in Zamfara state and one in Abuja. Most of the foundation’s volunteers are senior students who help club members with their sports activities on a temporary basis, Bitras said.
“This is what I love,” he said, adding that he would eventually like to see his students mentor other students.
To scale up, the foundation aims to capitalize on Nigeria’s tech boom, particularly in robotics. For example, it hopes to partner with Jos-based companies on self-driving car technology and wheelchairs.
Lendun Tunchama, co-founder of Genta Read, a community initiative that aims to improve reading skills in poor areas of Jos, has worked with the foundation for several years.
“The most important thing about Deftech is the passion of its leaders and founders,” he says. [disabilities] Gaining skills that you can use to earn an income and build your future is the best thing anyone can do.
“People need to understand that disability is not a death sentence or the end of life. … That’s what Deaf Tech does; it just gives people hope.”
