Our Objectives
To protect and promote Kenyan Sign Language (KSL) and its linguistic and cultural richness.
To advocate and promote public information and communication accessibilities without restriction in line with the Disability Act 2003, Constitution of Kenta 2010 and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
To mobilize, build the capacity of the members in order to provide a networking platform at all levels of engagement due to the disparity between culture and development especially for the deaf populations to understand their rights in the society.
To provide an acceptable platform of articulating, representing, advocating and lobbying for recognition and implementation of rights-based approaches to issues of the deaf people in relation to health, retrogressive cultural practices, gender, human rights, social Justice, governance, education, poverty eradication, health matters and social development.
To advocate and influence from a rights-based perspective for the mainstreaming of disability, gender and pro-poor initiatives in all policies/strategies at all county and national level.
Ensuring and supporting the formulation of engendered policies that support mainstreaming of disability, gender and pro-poor in addressing the needs of an inclusive society, more so with the deaf people at centre stage in promoting specialized needs of vulnerable populations’ diversities including access to justice and economic opportunities.
Promoting the institutionalization of the principles of equality, participation, non-discrimination into all forms of community processes, governance structures and decision making including those of organizations and networks working on/with deaf people.
Strengthening the capacities of deaf people in accessing services, resources and opportunities towards improving their livelihoods.
Advocating and lobbying the stakeholders to increase funding and other resources to improve overall accessibility continuum for deaf people.
Working with the media to improve visibility of these vulnerable deaf populations over the negative popular perceptions of the deaf people and that of the entire population of the People with disabilities in the society.
Our Success Story
For over 30 years, KNAD has remained active in lobbying for the legal and constitutional recognition of KSL, training for KSL interpreters, developing KSL training and advocacy materials. The achievements since then are exemplified in the inclusion of KSL in the CoK 2010 and legal recognition of KSL as the official and business Language of Parliament of Kenya. It is also the primary standard mean of information access for Deaf persons. In the push to insert KSL in the Constitution during the drafting process, KNAD collected and collated views of the Deaf community with support from local and international linguistic experts, local and international organization for/of the Deaf to petition the Committee of Experts on Constitution Review that drafted the New Constitution of Kenya.
On the development of KSL, KNAD in collaboration with the University of Nairobi researched, developed and published the first Kenyan Sign Language Dictionary, cooperated with Media Development in Africa with the support of Uraia to produce Civic “Education on My Constitution” DVDs in KENYAN SIGN LANGUAGE specifically targeting the Deaf community.
KNAD with the support of Toyota Foundation has collaborated with Akita University to train six Deaf and hearing KSL researchers. With our wide scope of work, diverse partners, KNAD has developed the capacity to engage and implement similar programs. We look forward to new challenges and opportunities to influence public policies and reforms necessary to ensure that information and public services are accessible to Deaf persons and people with Disabilities.
