Patrons at this year’s edition of Blantyre Arts Festival (Baf) could not believe that some of the elegant visual artworks they saw at the festival were made by children with visual impairments from Mountain View School for the Deaf Children in Bvumbwe, Thyolo.
The school’s arts club, comprising 15 children, impressed with their artistic creations that were displayed on their stall, which was strategically placed in front of Blantyre Cultural Centre’s amphitheatre.
Artworks such as paintings tie and dye, collage and pieces to do with teaching and learning using locally available resources (Talular) were displayed on the children’s stall.
Ernest Ng’ombe who is patron of the arts club and specialist teacher at the school said the club was established last year.
“The idea behind the formation of this club is to introduce our learners to some artistic entrepreneurship ventures,” said Ng’ombe.
He said his schools uses total communication (a combination of sign language and oralism) to train children with hearing impairments in expressive arts.
He, however, bemoaned lack of resources as a major stumbling block to empowering children with hearing impairments with artistic skills.
