[3] Deaf people in the DRC are subject to neglect and discrimination by their families and the government, but they are also met with small, various ways of support and charity through international, European, Australian, and American religious, non-religious, and governmental organizations.
American Sign Language migrated to the DRC via mission work from America to West Africa,[7] primarily from the contributions of Andrew Foster, a deaf African-American missionary.
[11] There is also the Deaf People's Association in Kinshasa, the capital city of the DRC, in which the president, Ngoy Mwanza, responded to the 2011 ban on text messaging (see in the next section).
[16] Adopted in December 2006, the convention is intended to advocate for the lives of disabled people, recognize accessibility and intersectionality within those communities, and in Article 2 of their Declaration, defending the right to communication and language via signing.
[22] The film highlights the experiences of four deaf women, Immaculée, Jemima, Sylvie and Stuka, specifically in Butembo, North Kivu.
"[23] A Christian charity organization based in Australia, called Medical Mission Aid, mentions on their website that they completed a project in Bukavu, DRC.
[25] According to their website, they asked for donations for audiological equipment, sought "rehabilitation services," and wanted to educate families and the general community on "ear health as a measure of prevention" and "implications for the disabled person.
[25] The Center for Education and Community-Based Rehabilitation (CERBC) is an organization that was established in 2004 by Ismael Byaruhanga, a PhD graduate of the University of Cologne in Germany.
[28] Before Andrew Foster's contributions, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cumeo, from Italy, founded the first school for the deaf in 1955 in the Bandundu Province.
[32] According to the head of the school, Sister Brigitte Tau, one of their achieved goals with this program was that the "perception of disability" improved, in turn creating a rise in equality in Bandundu.
[33] Nguvu Yetru is located in the town of Rutshuru in Kiwanja, DRC, and is best known for its vocational training in masonry, carpentry, sewing, and photography.
[36] The children receive literacy education and vocational training, such as sewing, weaving, shoemaking, agriculture, and music, but they also lack some materials, in need of kitchen utensils, more food, and supplies for their blind students.
[35] A GoFundMe page called "Hope Deaf-Blind School" was created on October 13, 2022, explaining that the children were abandoned by their families and are lacking in nutritional food at the program, and because of these factors are prone to diseases.
[citation needed] Based on the schools for the deaf and children with other disabilities that exist in the DRC, there are some opportunities for being a teacher and/or interpreter.
The students at these school receive mainly a basic education and vocational training for employment opportunities related to trade work.
This could be in order to work for a company or, since employment discrimination is something deaf people often have to face, create their own small business.
[40] Specifically, they assist in skills of entrepreneurship and provide finances for the people in these communities to create lives for themselves as independent workers.
Also, in order to avoid increasing someone's medical bill and putting them and the hospital into more debt, patients do not receive additional treatment while detained.
In the DRC, hospital detention is more common among post-natal women, who are unable to pay for their bills because they are unmarried, have been abandoned by a provider, or experienced nonconsensual impregnation.
[43] Deaf people tend to already be cautious about receiving medical treatment, because of the lack of communication to be had,[45] as well as the fact that they are also disproportionately unemployed.
[47] In a 2021 study, deaf people from the Sub-Saharan Africa regions reported unfair treatment by medical staff, including not being treated like a priority, lack of privacy and autonomy, and general disrespect.