*Marco was not allowed to learn his mother tongue.
Just because his parents are deaf.

Growing up, Marco had one big wish: he wanted to communicate meaningfully with his deaf parents. Marco tried but found it hard to fully express himself - his sign language was simply not good enough.

Even though sign language is one of the largest minority languages, it was never provided in school for Marco to learn. Instead, he spent many frustrating years explaining to people that sign language and deaf people are not dumb.

Marco felt guilty, lonely and disconnected from his parents.

It was only when Marco attended a school with access to sign language and teachers who are native sign language users that he was able to communicate at a level that he had wished for.

Marco is not alone.

Historically, children of deaf adults are prevented from learning their parent's sign language. Society often views deaf people as “disabled people” thus incapable of making their own decisions and knowing what’s best for them. Many also fail to see that sign language is a real language. As such, depriving the learning of sign language has the same impact of preventing any other child from learning his or her mother tongue.

It is important that families like Marco's can learn and use sign language.

Your donation will help the WFD tremendously.

With enough resources, we can continue our work in ensuring that no one is denied to use sign language as their mother tongue.

But this is not possible without your continuous support.

We need you to become our regular donor today.