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Ranjani's daughter Rajeswari was found to have a profound hearing loss of about 88 decibels. "I could detect that my child could not hear when she was five months old," says Ranjani who accepted the fact. "It is important that you understand, accept and try your best to help when your child is hearing-impaired," she says. "Having accepted and understood that there was a problem I first got educated myself on how to train a child with the disability and how to communicate with her."
The first five years are very important. The child slowly starts recognising you and wants to communicate with you. So if the child is not properly rehabilitated, it is thoroughly spoiled or becomes unmanageable. When Ranjani realised that the child must be exposed only to one language, she spoke to her in English all the time. "Though I belonged to a Tamil family and even though I had opposition from the family members, I still continued to talk to her in English so her communication with the outside world would be better," says Ranjani. "I put my daughter in Little Flower Convent. Then she went to a special school in London. That is where she gained all the confidence that she could perform well in a normal school. She got along well with the normal children," she recalls. "But you have to spend a lot of time with this type of kids. I used to concentrate on Raji. And one day my younger daughter walked up to me and asked me why I did not like spending time with her," recalls Ranjani.
"It is the responsibility of the parent to create a friendly environment for the child and make the child feel comfortable and confident," she adds. To help parents achieve this DAWN conducts an activity called FDP (Friends of Deaf People) - a meeting where hearing-impaired women from all walks of life and even normal women participate.
"But my heart first goes out to the hearing-impaired and I always want to do something to improve the quality of their lives," says Ranjani. She insists on the hearing impaired-learning some craft, tailoring for instance, that would get them a steady income. Now the DAWN is involved in making a herbal facial paste. "We make it only from flowers and there are no chemicals in it," says Ranjani. The association is expecting support from government departments and NGOs for its marketing. If you want to join Ranjani in her mission contact 8583434 (residence) or No. 9, Dr. Radha Krishnan Salai, Mylapore. V. Mangala Bhavani |
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She belongs to an illustrious family. She silently serves those who live in silence. Meet Ranjani Murugan, one of the founder trustees of DAWN (Deaf Adult Women's Needs) - an organisation of hearing-impaired women in Chennai. DAWN was launched last year by Ranjani and her daughter Rajeswari and a few others who were interested in improving the quality of life of hearing-impaired women.
Within a year, she could understand my lip movements and could also recognise and say words like akka, atthai, mama, etc," says
Ranjani. "At least in the case of my daughter, we started working towards managing the problem early, but in most cases, the hearing impaired child is just not rehabilitated for the first five crucial years of life," she says.
The best way to get these children more verbal is to speak, speak and speak to them till they respond. Ranjani also does counselling for parents of hearing-impaired children. "The depression and distress is more felt when a girl child has this disability. I try my best to explain this to them. It is the mother and father who can help the child more than anybody else," she says.
Here girls learn to take the initiative and develop leadership potential and reinvest skills through community action. Her daughter's success stands as testimony to Ranjani's hard work. Ranjani also works for the All India Women Association, the Family Planning Association of India (FPAI), the Red Cross, among others.