“I saw videos of people in masks and people dying, but I don’t know what it means”: supporting Samoa’s Deaf community through COVID-19

Above: Participants at the NOLA forum for Samoans who are Deaf, held in September 2021.

In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread globally and Australian Humanitarian Partnership responses were launched across the Pacific, Nuanua O Le Alofa (NOLA), Samoa’s national disability advocacy organisation, began outreach efforts to ensure 1,200 people with diverse disabilities were able to access the information and support they needed.

Through their outreach effort, NOLA visited persons with disabilities and their families across the islands of Upolu, Savaii and Manono. Of the individuals they visited, more than 250 were Deaf, and over half did not understand formal sign language, relying on informal gestures to communicate. There are also low literacy levels among the Deaf community, due to limited access to formal education.

NOLA increasingly identified that despite their efforts to ensure inclusive messaging, people who were Deaf were still being left behind in preparedness and prevention efforts against COVID-19, and there was more work to do.

For example, on Savaii, when asking a Deaf father of four if he knew what COVID-19 was, he told the NOLA team: “I don’t know. I saw on the news lots of videos of people in masks and people dying, but I don’t know what it means.”

While some community members could understand the diagrams and pictures in NOLA’s COVID-19 outreach booklet, they didn’t understand why these messages were being shared.

NOLA’s outreach team could see that more time was needed to communicate COVID-19 information within the Deaf community.

In September 2021, in partnership with affiliate the Deaf Association of Samoa (DAS), NOLA hosted a one-week forum during International Week of Persons who are Deaf in Asau, Savaii, one of the country’s most remote regions. More than 60 members of the Deaf community from ages 14 to 55 came together to learn and discuss.

The weeklong forum covered topics such as human rights, COVID-19, gender-based violence and protection, how to access government disability payments, and how to budget.

Because of the high number of attendees without literacy skills or formal sign language comprehension, a team of Deaf interpreters worked tirelessly throughout the week to translate across multiple methods, including informal gestures, doing their best to ensure everyone could understand and be understood.

One leader told organisers about the significance and importance of the forum:

“People think we are stupid. That because we are Deaf, we can’t understand anything. And we start to believe it. But this week is about bringing everyone together. We say come, come. You can understand. Just watch and learn, we are here to support you.”

Above: Handwashing demonstrations at the forum.

During sessions on COVID-19, bowls of soap and water and hand sanitizer were handed out and everyone had a go at practicing correct handwashing techniques. A game of ‘memory’ was set up to test everyone’s understanding of the signs of COVID-19. A facilitator stood up and would act out different symptoms and participants would sign back whether it was a correct symptom or not. NOLA COVID-19 booklets were handed out and used as a guide and reference for the various activities. One participant had recently repatriated from New Zealand, and she shared her experience of testing and quarantine.

It was the first time most participants had ever talked about the pandemic, and a two-hour allocated session was extended to half a day so that they could ask all their questions. At the end of the session, bowls, soaps, sanitisers and masks were distributed so that everyone could take their own preparedness pack home with them.

A financial literacy session was also lively. Many participants had never had an income before, and budgeting their new Disability benefit, supported by the Samoan government in the 2021 national budget, was a new experience.

Other sessions were more subdued. A facilitator explained:

“On the days when we discussed violence and protection it was heavy. Many of our Deaf community have experienced regular and violent outbursts from members of their family that had even led to hospitalisation. We can’t solve these problems in one week, but we were able to create a space where people could share. We had a collective conversation about how we want to do everything we can to ensure that the violence stops with us. And we let our Deaf community know that if they needed someone to talk to, or help in accessing services such as the Police, that they can always call, and we will always make sure they have interpreters available to them.”

While COVID-19 was the main driver behind the forum, which was the longest ever held by DAS and on Savaii for the first time, participants took away much more than a deeper understanding of the pandemic.

Increased confidence and connection to community were important gains, as a facilitator shared:

“My favourite story from the week was one member we had from Upolu. She was a lady in her thirties who had never been to school, never been on the ferry before, couldn’t sign her own name or write down how old she was. She was so nervous when she arrived.”

“We got her up to introduce herself on the first day and she just stood there and shrugged. Our Deaf interpreters did so much to encourage her throughout the week and on the third day, I asked a question, and her had shot up in the air and she stood up, and tried to answer. Seeing her confidence and comfort in the space we had created made me so happy.”

“When she had finished giving her answer, everyone’s hands went up, shaking in the Deaf sign for clapping. We were all so proud of how far she had come in such a short time, and seeing her smile, we knew she understood that she would always have a place of safety and support in our community.”

Nuanua O Le Alofa’s work was supported through the Australian Humanitarian Partnership COVID-19 response in Samoa.