‘Proper support system vital for deaf community’
KUCHING: With a population of 3,000 deaf individuals in Sarawak, there must be a proper support system for this community to lead a normal life, said Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Dr Sim Kui Hian.
“Through various outreach and awareness campaigns by Sarawak Society for the Deaf, the deaf community can actually live an independent lifestyle and contribute to Sarawak in many other ways, be it for nation building or others,” said Dr Sim.
Dr Sim, also Public Health, Housing and Local Government Minister, lauded the Sarawak Society for the Deaf for its initiatives over the past 40 years, in which about 10 per cent of the deaf community in Sarawak had already been registered as members of the organisation.
“I have witnessed talented individuals coming from the deaf community in spite of their personal struggles, and I’m just wondering maybe in future they can just use their hand motions with a camera turn on and the phone will speak for them.
“These are the possibilities of artificial intelligence where technology can actually mimic your voice as such,” he told the press after launching the Sarawak Society for the Deaf’s charity food fair at the Sarawak Association of Churches hall here yesterday.
Sarawak Society for the Deaf chairman Albert Wong, meanwhile, remarked that the objective of the food fair was to raise RM300,000 to cover the maintenance costs of their centre, as well as for them to carry out their community programmes.
“Some of the funds raised will also go towards conducting more sign language classes, early intervention programmes for parents with deaf infants and for our deaf broadcasting project,” he said.
Among those present at the event were Sarawak Society for the Deaf general manager cum organising chairman Ernest Ting, and Batu Lintang assemblyman See Chee How.