Nurturing Deaf Flourishing Sustainably 227
Cameroon’s University of Buea, which I coordinated with Dr. Lutalo-Kiingi, provided
a unique opportunity to continue examining these. Additionally, we were able to
attain further insight into the awareness raising that had been fueled by our work-
shop on CSL and the other parts of the WFD training (De Clerck, 2011; Lutalo-Kiingi,
2015a; see also Chapter 5).
Our objective was to bring Dr. Lutalo-Kiingi’s linguistic perspective into the study,
enhancing its interdisciplinary value and creating opportunities for Cameroonians
to have contact with an African deaf scholar and activist in long-term development
cooperation. His background includes capacity building of the UNAD and
Ugandan Sign Language (UgSL) programs at Kyambogo University (Lutalo-Kiingi,
2011a; this process is described extensively in Lutalo-Kiingi & De Clerck, 2015a,
2015c, 2015d, in press). As a white deaf person, I was only able to share examples
of development in Europe and America, distant places that were richer in available
resources and representative of models that might not be readily transferable to
Sub-Saharan Africa (for a reflection on my position in the field also see Chapter 7
and De Clerck,2010b).
During our CSL workshop, we noticed that the deaf participants were starting
to appreciate that this was a bona fide and interesting language, different from
ASL, LSF, and gesture. From an educational perspective, the ideologically-loaded
transition from “gestures” to “a genuine indigenous sign language” had been
experienced as problematic because it jarred with the knowledge that these people
had acquired in their childhoods. Sign languages in Uganda and some other East
African countries have developed somewhat differently from those in West Africa,
which have been heavily influenced by ASL. This is due in large part to missionary
work, specifically the establishment of deaf schools by Andrew Foster, a deaf African
American (for further information, see Caroll & Mather, 1997; Moore & panara,
1996; see also Chapter 5).
The vitalization of UgSL included leadership by indigenous deaf people in the land-
mark 14-year development partnership (1992–2006) between the UNAD and the Dan-
ish National Association of the Deaf (described in Lutalo-Kiingi & De Clerck, in press;
also see Lutalo-Kiingi & De Clerck, 2015a, 2015d). This partnership, which was pre-
sented as an exemplar to the Cameroonian participants, is worth exploring here due to
its broad approach that recognized capacity building and human rights. It took place
across four discernable stages, starting with leadership training at the UNAD and UgSL
awareness raising among the deaf community and actors in the development process.
This sensitization led to a successful campaign for the constitutional recognition
of UgSL in 1995. Stage two responded to the community’s need for deaf UgSL
instructors; the partners implemented peer education for prospective instructors
in 1994. This was expanded gradually into a three-month program and a one-
year instruction certificate at Kyambogo by 2002, when the university also estab-
lished a UgSL interpreting diploma. The partnership’s third stage addressed UgSL
research, a key next step toward the vitalization and greater societal status of the lan-
guage. In cooperation with Stockholm University, deaf staff members at Kyambogo
were trained to conduct corpus research, resulting in the Ugandan Sign Language
Dictionary (Wallin, Lule, Lutalo-Kiingi, & Busingye, 2006).