Immanuel Integrated Christian School, Kenya (K – 8)
A flagship school for us, our students here regularly achieve the highest results out of any deaf school in Kenya. The school was established in the 1990’s and has continued to flourish since those early days. The school is located in the picturesque area of Ringa about 326 km (202.6.miles) west of Nairobi. Many of the students go on to study at high school level, or go into vocational training. We currently have a total of 48 Deaf students on campus, with 26 college and high school students also under our care. The dormitory allows students from remote areas to live at the school during term time.
In 2021, we began integrating hearing students into our school. Typically deaf children are integrated into hearing schools, but given the high standard of our school, we initiated a plan, in conjunction with the Kenyan government’s Policy of Integration, to integrate hearing students into our deaf school. To preserve the culture of the deaf school, we will accommodate a maximum of 150 hearing students to 126 Deaf students. All hearing students are day scholars and only share limited facilities like the playground and dining hall during the day.
We are at this time piloting full classroom integration in our grade 3 classes (only) to ascertain how effective a fully inclusive classroom environment can be. All our hearing students therefore, except grade 3, have separate classrooms, yet students of all grades – deaf and hearing – have daily sign language classes.
The school also has a vocational program to accommodate students that are not academically able to engage in the conventional curriculum program. The school offers skills training such as tailoring and woodworking which are skills that will benefit their futures.
As the school now is integrated and has a new curriculum, the government has given them approval to build some new facilities, such as science, computer, and home science laboratories. These will help enable a smooth transition from primary to junior secondary education.
The school offers a permaculture club and farming program teaching skills of modern farming, which the students then take home to teach their families. They learn all that is involved in growing different crops including fruits and vegetables. During the school breaks they are able to use their skills to grow produce that they can sell, providing a little extra income for their families.
The Immanuel Integrated Christian School also receives short term mission teams who would like to experience a DMI school first hand and contribute to the work involved.
Self-Sustainability Projects
Some years ago, a sewing workshop was set up in Nairobi to provide work for Deaf women with AIDS. It is overseen by Josephat (DMI Director for East Africa) who also pastors the Nairobi Church for the Deaf. The workshop has not only provided an income for these women but has been a place of refuge where they can feel loved and accepted despite their disability and disease.
In 2021 an initiative was stated where the workshop would make reusable sanitary pads for and sell them to school for them to distribute to their female students.
Many girls and women in Kenya don’t have access to, or can’t afford, sanitary items to care for themselves during their menstruation. Girls at our Deaf school have been known to use paper or tree bark as their sanitary pads. Some are unable to attend school during this time which means they are missing out on a few days of classes every month, just because they don’t have access to the resources they need to care for themselves.
The first recipients were the girls at Immanuel Christian Integrated School. The ladies from the sewing workshop spent time giving the female students an education session on menstrual hygiene and sanitation before distributing the products. It was very well received and we hope this is the beginning of an ongoing project to other schools in the area.
Ministry in Kenya
DMI began ministry in Kenya over 40 years ago. Since then it has grown to have 26 churches for the Deaf across the country, ministering to over 2000 members each week. Our Kenyan ministry has also raised Deaf missionaries who have gone to other African countries and planted churches and projects with great success. In 2023, Kenya hosted DMI’s 8th International Conference in Mombasa which drew over 80 field workers, staff, supporters and mission partners.
