The Girls Who Taught a School to Listen

Ajmati Khatoon was nineteen. She was deaf. And despite her age, she had received very little meaningful education. Then she entered a residential school in Bihar with other girls who had hearing and speech impairments. There was a problem. The school was not properly prepared for them. Teacher Mansi Kumari did not initially know how to communicate effectively with the girls. It would have been easy to treat the students as the problem. Instead, something different happened. The school began adapting. Teachers learned sign language. Communication improved. Ajmati and the other girls began participating. The students who had spent much of their lives being expected to fit into systems that were not designed for them finally entered a place willing to change too. Sometimes encouragement is not telling somebody to try harder. Sometimes it is changing the environment so that they finally have a fair chance. Has someone ever changed the way they did things so that you could finally belong? This is an editorial retelling of a documented account. Original storytellers: Ajmati Khatoon and Mansi Kumari. Country: India. Source: UNICEF India.