Mumbai
Sign language came naturally to Shabina Choudhary (23). Having been brought up with four brothers who are hearing impaired, Ms. Choudhary learnt to communicate with them through sign language when she was barely two years old.
“My parents, who have had no formal education, found it difficult to communicate with my brothers. Till date, they rely on me to convey their messages,” says Ms. Choudhary, who picked up sign language from her brothers who went to special schools.
Being the youngest and the brightest in the family, Ms. Choudhary’s brothers would regularly take her along for their job interviews. However, their rejection at the hands of prospective employers hurt her deeply. “All my brothers are highly skilled and disciplined, and yet, had to struggle immensely to find jobs,” she says. It took one of her brothers a year to land a job, and the incident spurred her to help everyone who wished to pursue higher studies but was unable to do so due to the lack of facilities.
The beginning
While completing her B.Com degree, Ms. Choudhary signed up for a part-time diploma in sign language from Ali Yavar Jung National Institute of Hearing Impaired in 2010. At the age of 17, she was associated with an NGO, ‘DEEDS’, which provides vocational training to people with hearing impairment, and translated dialogues into sign language for their documentary ‘David’. The next year, she started working as an interpreter and began teaching English at the NGO.
Around this time, she was approached by five hearing-impaired underprivileged students for HSC examination tuitions. Ms. Choudhary decided to provide them with free tuitions but finding space was a challenge. “My home was not big enough to accommodate five students and I did not have enough money to rent a place.”
She then approached various voluntary organisations and finally, Zakariya Patel Trust agreed to give her space for conducting classes at Khadak near Masjid station. In June 2014, she began A. J. Tutorial, named after her parents, and started teaching Commerce to hearing-impaired students pursuing their HSC. Her classes began at 6 p.m. as the students had day jobs. To her satisfaction, all five students scored 60% and more. “Seeing their happy faces, I knew I was on the right path,” she says.
Hurdles and challenges
Ms. Choudhary realised that while she had the knowledge of sign language, she needed a professional degree to conduct classes. After completing her B.Com in 2014, she joined a B.Ed course on teaching the hearing impaired in Ayodhya College, Pune. By 2015, the class strength went up to 35, and people from as far as Kalyan, Nalasopara and Virar started coming to her.
But this was just the beginning, and the hurdles began to show up. In 2016, the State Board rejected 15 hall tickets on the ground that they had not chosen the mandatory ‘English’ as a subject during their SSC, and despite her best efforts, the students couldn’t appear that year. Finding colleges for those who had cleared the examination was another daunting task. Most colleges refused to give her students admissions as the institute did not have special educators. After a great deal of persuasion and a number of emails, all the students who had cleared the examination were enrolled in Habib College, Dongri.
After the initial setback, Ms. Choudhary decided to give her students special training in English and made it mandatory for them to clear the English improvement examination before registering for the HSC exam. This year, the entire batch cleared the SSC examination with first-class marks, and have applied to the night college at Parel. A. J. Tutorial now has 40 students.
Empowering the youth
Ritesh Mahipal (29), a Govandi resident who is pursuing his HSC through correspondence from Mumbai University, is hopeful of getting a better job. The sole earning member in a family of five, Mr. Mahipal works as a cleaner in an office and earns around Rs. 2,500 per week. He scored 59% in his SSC and hopes to score better with Ms. Choudhary’s help.
Sanna Sheikh (22) is one of her brightest students. She scored 79% in her SSC, but her father did not allow her to study further. On Ms. Choudhary’s persuasion, he has allowed Ms. Sheikh to appear for her HSC examination. “My passion is to teach and I want to pursue an advanced course in animation,” she says. “It will be difficult to convince my father, but I am confident Ms. Choudhary will be able to do so,” says Ms. Sheikh.
Paucity of funds
As all her students come from the weaker sections, college fees and stationery are out of bounds for them. Last year, a local MLA agreed to fund all the students’ education. However, this year, no one has come forward to help them. Ms. Choudhary, who has started teaching in the Bombay Institution for Deaf, Mazgaon, since August 2016, is putting in money from her own pocket, but this “is far too little to meet expenses”.
But Ms. Choudhary is not one to give up easily. “I will continue to fight for equal rights for the hearing impaired, and help them pursue higher studies so as to enable them to get good jobs.”
AJ Tutorial
Founder: Shabina Choudhary
Funding: Self, donations
Contact: 7738185700