Robert Remarque Grund, World Federation of the Deaf representative in Pyongyang and the city’s only full-time deaf foreign resident, is working to establish the first ever kindergarten for children who are deaf in North Korea. He has secured a location for the facility and plans to open it on the 70th anniversary of the founding of the country’s ruling party on October 10.
Grund’s not-for-profit organization – TOGETHER-Hamhung based in Berlin– is funding the initiative in North Korea’s capital. The plan is to accept children from infancy on up until they are old enough to attend regular deaf schools.
“Nobody knows how many kids will come. From our point of view, every deaf child has access. Since this country strongly advertises the right of children to be in nurseries and kindergartens, it is probably not so much a matter of choosing, but a matter of information and spreading the word so that the families get to know the new option and dare to bring their deaf child, overcoming the traditional hiding in the family,” he told The Associated Press.
When he was young, he watched a TV report that claimed there were “practically no” deaf people in North Korea. A deaf by birth, he decided to visit the country to verify the claims. Grund, now 30, has since devoted himself to improving life for deaf North Koreans and has helped influence the change in attitudes toward the deaf in the country. He works with the bureaucracy and with the deaf to train them to plan and lead their own projects to help them join mainstream society.
The new development and the concept of inclusion as laid out in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities have inspired his disability movement in North Korea – build a new school, an Educational Center, try integrative education as a first step with deaf, blind, and non-disabled children – from primary school to vocational training – and based on this experience follow the concept of inclusion as the next step.
His priority is to open more schools for occupational training and provide educational opportunities for the deaf; teach more deaf children and interpreters how to sign; ensure sign language interpretation is made available at workplaces and meetings; and to see signing on national television broadcasts to raise awareness in the hearing community that the deaf exist.
Grund follows NAUWU principle – Nothing About Us Without Us – for empowering the deaf. His NGO, TOGETHER-Hamhung, in collaboration with the World Federation of the Deaf, the Korean Federation for the Protection of the Disabled, and the Korean International Travel Company, is organizing an International Deaf Meeting in Pyongyang on August 7-11 with the aim of enabling the deaf community to meet and share experiences.
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