School for the Deaf

The school first came about as a result of a Campaign for Hearing Loss Reduction carried out in April 2008, in collaboration with researchers from Oxford University. The study, which involved 200 children across Zanzibar, saw 40 children from Zanzibar Town fitted with hearing aids donated by IMPACT.

It was through ZOP’s provision of speech therapy for those children once fitted with the hearing aids, that the school was born. In the first year of its existence,  Out of 40 children fitted with hearing aids, 12 successfully gained speech confidence. Through the process, Zanzibar had gained its first facility catering for special needs education for the hard of hearing. All those original children from the first days of school, are now assimilated back into Government schools.

The school works in collaboration with ENT UNIT of Mnazi Mmoja hospital and enrolls any child noted with deafness and fitted with a hearing aid.

The school is completely sponsored by the ZOP familyThe school bus takes the children to and from school free of charge as most parents do not have the means to take their children to school.