Donna Christha Renata, Struggling to Include the Deaf
Donna Christha Renata, has set up a learning community that strives for the social inclusion of deaf people in Bitung city, She calls it Kaleb, a place where friends with disabilities gain knowledge and skills.
By
KRISTIAN OKA PRASETYADI
·6 minutes read
Instead of staple foods or monthly cash aid, what can make disabled people independent is access to education, training and employment. Based on this principle, Donna Christha Renata, 31, has set up a learning community that strives for the social inclusion of deaf people in Bitung city, North Sulawesi. She calls it Kaleb, a place where friends with disabilities gain knowledge and skills for self-reliance.
“In Kaleb, our deaf friends are no longer people with disabilities because there’s already communication access. We can communicate with them and treat them according to their ages so that they are no longer marginalized,” said Chira, as Donna Christha is commonly called, when visited on Friday afternoon in early June 2022. Kaleb is an acronym for Komunitas Tuli Peduli Bitung (Bitung Community for the Care of the Deaf). Chira founded it on 13 Sept., 2018, two years after she arrived to settle in the industrial city. She converted her house located in Madidir district into a learning and skill training center for the deaf.
Training in photography was going on that afternoon, and several several deaf friends were participating, including Marco, Elton and Jessica. Under the guidance of two mentors, they arranged coffee glasses, a container pack and coffee beans, highlighted with ring light so as to enhance its appearance. Then they took turns photographing the composition with a digital camera.
For those who are not close to the deaf community, the atmosphere of the training might seem strange. Almost no word was spoken because all the communication was conducted by means of sign language. Only outbursts of laughter later came out of the photo studio with plywood walls at the back of Chira’s house.
Photography is only one of the various programs made available to Kaleb members. Besides the photo studio, Chira also operates studios for T-shirt screen printing, fashion desig and a workshop for wood crafting.
We design training programs as desired by them because they want to work in the ways people in general are doing.
In Chira’s backyard, different kinds of coffee preparation equipment stand on a long table, ranging from V60 drippers to espresso machines for barista training. Part of the parking yard has been turned into a café and kitchen for small-scale business training. The training classes are handled by creative-industry activists in Bitung and its vicinity, including Chira herself, who holds bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the Jakarta Arts Institute (IKJ). Apart from that, Chira will serve as a supporting interpreter to help the learning process of the deaf members.
“We design training programs as desired by them because they want to work in the ways people in general are doing. Later, we plan to open field work practice here. Their salaries will be commensurate with their output,” said Chira.
Second house
Now, Kaleb has become a second home for about 40 people with hearing disabilities in Bitung, mostly teenagers and young people of productive ages. According to Chira, the majority have never received formal education for reasons of economic constraints and family attitudes. Chira said she was unable to provide educational services like those offered by schools. She felt training and field work practice were more appropriate and effective for the deaf affiliated with Kaleb.
“So, this activity belongs to informal education. Fortunately, everything I learned during my studies at the IKJ can be applied here,” she noted.
Nonetheless, Chira continues to found her training programs on six bases of literacy, which are reading and writing, numeracy, science, digitization, finance, as well as culture and civics. In this way, her students will develop not only skills but also critical reasoning in daily life, such as when they have to be engaged in noncash sales.
As a result, some of the Kaleb members who were previously unemployed or did casual jobs have now secured regular occupations. One member known as Ochen, for instance, works as contract teacher at an extraordinary school (SLB), while Fahariyanti works as a hairstylist. Several other members have also worked in the fish processing industry.
Chira indicated that all this was possible because Kaleb served as a bridge between the deaf and the public at large in Bitung. Various festivals were their meeting arenas. Chira takes advantage of such opportunities to introduce the deaf community to others and teach visitors sign language.
“Kaleb tries to [encourage its students to] mingle with people so that awareness is raised in society with a non-disabled majority that there are deaf friends in Bitung and they can do many things, like people with normal hearing,” she said.
Kaleb is known as the first movement in Bitung that has encouraged the inclusion of people with hearing disabilities. For this reason, since early 2022, Kaleb has been involved by the Bitung city administration in the formulation of the mayor’s regulation on people with disabilities. Financial support comes especially from PT Pertamina Patra Niaga, which has consistently aided Kaleb’s activity through its corporate social responsibility fund since 2019.
This year, Kaleb has managed to collect funds worth Rp 275 million, beating the previous record by 10 times.
“We will utilize the funds in the best possible way to ensure the success of the kids,” she said.
At the time I felt that I could not accept the situation, and that has prompted me to remain here.
Besides Kaleb, Chira’s attention to her deaf friends is also manifested in the Public Reading Park (TBM), Teman Luar Biasa (Extraordinary Friends), the only inclusive TBM for people with disabilities in North Sulawesi. In addition, Chira is an active sign language interpreter in various programs.
Her work has won the favor of the Bitung city administration, which is striving to create an inclusive city. Chira was appointed as an honorary employee in
Bitung’s Investment and One-Stop Services Office (DPMPTSP) to serve people with disabilities.
On her journey through life, Chira met with deaf friends. Then she felt concerned because the living conditions of the deaf in Bitung and those in Jakarta, ranging from their communication, academic capacity and economic status to their social lives, were very different.
Chira was once a teacher in SLB Santi Rama for deaf students.
“At the time I felt that I could not accept the situation, and that has prompted me to remain here.”
Donna Christha Renata
Born: Jakarta, 29 Sept., 1990
Education:
- Fashion Design Study Program, Fine Arts Department, Jakarta Arts Institute
- Sign Language Course, International Language Institute, University of Indonesia (LBI UI) (May-August 2022)