Deaf students in Salvador are without Libras interpreters – 05/25/2023 – Education

Deaf students in public schools in Salvador have been without Libras (Brazilian Sign Language) interpreters in the classrooms for just over a month. The 37 professionals who served the entire municipal network were removed, and the 134 students with hearing impairment enrolled in kindergarten and elementary school are without translators.

The removal of the interpreters, on April 18, occurred with the end of the contract between the Municipal Department of Education and the outsourced company responsible for the service.

Sought, the folder stated that the temporary hiring of Libras interpreters is in progress, but did not say when the professionals will actually be in schools.

In response sent on Tuesday (23) to a letter from the Public Defender’s Office, however, the secretariat says it will resolve the issue within 15 days. According to the agency, if the replacement is not fulfilled, the city hall may be sued in court. A Sheet the municipal management had already informed that it would have hired new interpreters by May 9, which did not occur.

“It was sudden, both for the children and for the interpreters. Not even the school itself was communicated. She knew because she was warned by the interpreters that the contract had been suspended”, says psychopedagogue Ticiana de Sousa Barbosa, 30, mother of a deaf student .

She describes the frustration of her daughter, Thaysa Maria Barbosa de Souza, 9.

“She speaks sadly, cries because she misses it, because she wants to communicate and they don’t understand her”, she says. She says that she needed to reduce the girl’s time at school after the departure of Libras interpreter Regiandre Silva, 37, who accompanied her daughter.

While the situation is not normalizing, some of the deaf students are not going to school regularly, says Ticiana.

“It’s divided. Some children are going, but coming back earlier, others only go two or three times a week. And others are not going at all because they can’t communicate, they get lost and end up getting agitated in the classroom because they can’t understand and interact.”

Regiandre says that she and other interpreters who were dismissed were informed by the secretariat that they would automatically migrate from one contract to another so that students would not be left without translators. “That’s not what happened,” she says.

On April 24, the date on which the National Day of the Brazilian Sign Language is celebrated, a week after the interpreters left, Ticiana and other mothers questioned the city hall about the end of the contract. At the time, according to Regiandre, the response received was that the rehiring process was in progress and would be concluded by the beginning of May.

With no solution, parents and guardians of deaf students launched a campaign on social networks to pressure the city hall to resolve the problem, in order to prevent students from being left without interpreters.

In 2016, the Salvador City Hall was the subject of a court decision that forced the municipality to hire Libras interpreters for municipal schools. The action was filed by the Public Defender’s Office after a complaint from the parents.

“Many are the rights violated [nesta situação]”, says Cláudia Ferraz, public defender in charge of the case. “International conventions, fundamental rights brought by the Federal Constitution, the Statute of Children and Adolescents and the Brazilian Law of Inclusion.”

For interpreter Regiandré Silva, in addition to the pedagogical damage, children suffer psychologically and emotionally.

“There was a routine, contact with teachers, colleagues of the same age. How is this person going to say to the teacher, for example ‘I didn’t understand, repeat it please?’ Without the translator, it’s impossible.”