One in 1,000 children in the world is deaf. In Europe, nearly 500,000 deaf people are trying to access knowledge and find a job. This community suffers from a lack of inclusion: due to inadequate education, 80% of deaf people have little or no mastery of their official language and have great difficulty in finding a job (the employment rate is 71% for people with mild deafness, 59% with moderate deafness and only 34% for people with profound deafness). This shows how important it is to offer a wide range of educational content from an early age so that deaf and hard of hearing children have the opportunity to acquire knowledge and become responsible citizens.
The provision of information suitable for the deaf public is insufficient for deaf adults and almost non-existent for deaf children. This prevents deaf people from accessing content, which is even more critical in schools, where teachers cannot afford to use educational content that is suitable for their deaf and hard of hearing students.
Existing material uses content that is too rich in text (with sentences that are often long and complicated to be easily understood by deaf children who have not yet acquired written language) and videos contain comments and subtitles. This has the effect of demotivating many deaf children in school learning. This has the effect of demotivating many deaf students in school learning.
The Open Sign project aims to develop the first content platform adapted to deaf children. These contents are mainly adapted to students aged 7 to 13 years old. This is indeed the age group where children learn to read, write and count (common base of knowledge and skills) and their needs are crucial.
With pedagogical elements that are easy for deaf children to understand, we wish to help teachers to develop children’s interest in school learning, to open deaf children to the world, to awaken their curiosity, to develop their knowledge and to give them the means to communicate with them. their environment, including their family. This in turn will enable them to improve their learning performance and increase their access to abstract concepts and reading potential.
International network of organisations with vision, determination, and commitment to ensure that no one is denied full and equal participation in all aspects of society.