Ears in Moonbeams

‘Ears in Moonbeams’, a documentary film is made to celebrate the silver jubilee of the Centre for Education of Hearing Impaired Children (CEHIC). Written and directed by Wijith Rohana the film is about the history and work of CEHIC which pioneered the educational system making nearly 450 profoundly deaf children in Sri Lanka to hear, talk and study in mainstream schools and allowing one of them so far to complete her university degree. In 2006, Miss Kanchana Rajapaksha, one of the first profoundly deaf children from a poor background who was educated by Sr. Greta, obtained a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Library Science, Buddhist Culture and Sinhala Language from the University of Kelaniya. This is the first time in Sri Lanka that a so-called 'deaf student educated in the Auditory-Oral Method entered a university in the island.

The CEHIC is a unique Community School, managed by the parents and run free of charge. Founded by Sr. Greta Nalawatta P.H., in Dalugama, Kelaniya on May 31 1983, her laudable service initiated with two strong founding principal free education for all hearing impaired children and an ethos of inter-religious and inter-ethnic cooperation and harmony. Sr. Nalawatta, a member of the sisters of Perpetual Help began her unique work, the first of its kind in Sri Lanka, twenty five years ago because she believed that hearing impaired children should be treated like normal hearing children and that their habilitation (not re-habilitation) should begin from the pre school age, even as early as six to eight months old.

She insisted that hearing impaired children can go to higher academic and social achievement and become equal creative partners with normal hearing people in building a better society.

After receiving a comprehensive training in these teaching methods in Japan in 1981 Sr Greta started her work alone in a small hut in the Gampaha District with just the teaching materials she had made with her own hands and seated on mats with the few children she had gathered after going from house to house in the villages searching for the little 'deaf and dumb' children who were being kept at home and not sent to school. The full staff complement at present consists of 18 teachers, 3 office staff and 3 domestic staff. There are also 10 part-time teachers.

It was only later that the steady evolutionary process began, with the help of various donor-institutions and individual well-wishers, of setting up a proper pre-school, educational centre and a Parents' Association to assist her. She was also helped to seek post-graduate studies in England - obtaining a Diploma in Advanced Studies in the Education of Hearing Impaired Children (DASEHIC) from the University of Manchester in 1991.

CEHIC is neither a private school nor a state school; it is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious Community School managed by the parents. The two patrons of the centre are the Ven. Kusaladhamma Nayâke Thera, Chancellor of the University of Kelaniya who is also the high prelate of the Buddhist Sangha who heads the Peliyagoda Vidyalankara Pirivena and the other patron is Rev. Fr. Aloysius Peiris, S.J. the world renowned Jesuit theologian and Buddhist scholar.

The film 'Ears in Moonbeams' which is made to show the world the works of CEHIC had its maiden screening at BMICH last Saturday and it is planned to show the film in different countries around the world.