Shamila Kurukulasuriya:

First Lankan author of sign language books

by Rajitha Weerakoon

Shamila Kurukulasuriya is a young mother of Sri Lankan origin, leading a full-life in Washington DC. Born with acute deafness, Shamila, her handicap withstanding, resolutely continued with her studies graduating from the best of universities for the Deaf in the USA. Today, this highly successful professional woman, running her own Graphic Design Company in Washington DC, has a passionate yearning - to use the advanced learning she received in exclusive American Universities to bridge the deaf children of Sri Lanka with the "hearing world" through Sign Language.

Shamila Kurukulasuriya

The campaign of building bridges Shamila just begun islandwide encompasses deaf children of all communities - Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim and others and her earnest wish is to see that they achieve their full potential in effective communication.

Already, five trilingual, attractively-illustrated books have been launched for pre-school children with lessons in Sign Language. Two more are currently in publication. If, Shamila says, deaf children in the first six years achieve the same level of proficiency in communication, recognition, reading and writing-skills as well as acquire the same basic knowledge of concepts, letters and numbers as "hearing" children, they could be on par with the rest as they start formal education.

Shamila graduated from the premier University for the Deaf in USA - the Gallaudet University in Washington DC established after the civil war, by Abraham Lincoln himself. She was thereafter, among the first deaf students to be enrolled at the Savannah School of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia. Thus, well equipped and fully aware of the value of communication, she, qualifying her campaign says that the near complete absence of any kind of education or communication during the formative years of deaf children, relegates them to lives of missed opportunities, social isolation and poverty.

Shamila gives a strong message to the parents and family as their involvement is essential towards the development of the deaf child - which she says unfortunately does not happen. Unless deaf children start learning before they start schooling, they will lose their chances in life.

Her books are lessons in basic Sign Language titled Nishu @ Sign Language Workbook which M.D. Gunasena offered to print and market "not as a profit-venture but to give strength for those who cannot hear." Being a non-profit service to the deaf community, royalties from the sale of Shamila's books will go into a Trust Fund which will be used for teaching deaf children and their parents in Sri Lanka. Shamila hopes to follow her initial series with several more including videos and a website dedicated for the deaf children.

Bearing in mind its humanitarian need, several agencies have stepped forward to assist Shamila to effectively implement her dream. At the recent book launch, Walter A. Gunawardena, Chairman and the General Manager, Denver Fernando with the Synergen Health (Pvt.) Ltd. team, being a solutions and services company serving the US healthcare industry, made a generous cash donation to the implementing agency - 'Candle Aid'. Synergen has already carried out projects at the School for the Deaf and Blind in Ratmalana and donated essential educational needs to deaf students in Batticaloa.

There had been many others too who had made similar donations to make these books available to deaf children who would not have been able to otherwise access the books.

"Candle Aid," had already distributed 2500 Sign Language books to parents of deaf children in Pothuvil, Tangalle and Anuradhapura. The author is overjoyed that over 1,500 sets - 7,500 in all, have already been donated to families from Matara to Jaffna and Batticaloa to Ratmalana. The Tamil Sign Language books in fact have gone into reprint which gives an idea of the impact of the project.

Shamila took 3-4 years consulting principals and the staff of several leading schools for the deaf in Sri Lanka. She also received help from a team of deaf teachers and researchers from all parts of the island through demonstrations of the Sign Language on camera besides the support she received from the National Institute of Education in Maharagama. Therefore, the Sign Language that Shamila has used in her books conforms to what is accepted in Sri Lanka.

Being a graphic designer by profession, Shamila has made her books pictorially 'active' and exciting. There has to be emphasis on visual details Shamila says as the deaf child uses only his eyes and relies on visual communication. Parents can use these illustrations when relating the story through Sign Language. These work books with lessons in letters, numbers, key words and phrases, while being easy to use and fun to learn, can engage the entire family. Shamila's Sign Language being bilingual, cuts across communal barriers. Whether one is Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim or English-speaking, even though their thinking is in a different language, the Sign Language that is used to communicate has no disparity.

Enlightening us Shamila says that the Sign Language is not meant only for the deaf. Today, it is an accepted language, just as German, French or Japanese and Sign Language interpreters are sought after in developed countries by the older deaf students who pursue O/L and A/L examinations. More 'hearing' people, therefore, are being motivated to learn the Sign Language to find employment as interpreters and to help deaf students who pursue the BA, MA or PhD degrees.

Therefore, while deaf students are continuing higher studies opening more doors in the career market for Sign Language interpreters, the deaf people too, Shamila says, "have dreams. Other than hearing, we can do anything. And we are still proud to have 'deaf pride.'" Many in fact, have reached eminence notwithstanding the impairment. For the German composer Beethovan, the inventor of bulbs Thomas Edison, the American author, politician and activist Hellen Keller and the American Academy Award winner - Marlee Matlin, deafness had not been an obstacle to achieve greatness.

The Australian woman MP Helen Jarmer as well as the Queen of Sweden use sign language when making speeches. Closer home, for Shamila, the successful "professional" and the first author of Sign Language text book of Sri Lanka, deafness evidently has not stood in her way.