F E AT U R E : W I T S C E N T R E F O R D E A F S T U D I E S
LET YOUR HANDS DO THE TALKING THE CENTRE FOR DEAF S TUDIES S TAR TED AS A DREAM OF ONE WOMAN, BUT TODAY IT HAS GROWN INTO AN ENABLING ENVIRONMENT FOR THE COMMUNIT Y IT SERVES. BY UFRIEDA HO
L E F T: P RO F E S S O R C L AU D I N E S TO R B E CK R I G H T: D R LUC AS MAGONGWA OPPOSITE: ART WORK S IN THE DEAF ARTS GALLERY COME FROM AS FAR AFIELD AS CONGO, CANADA AND IRAN
48 W I T S R E V I E W
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here’s a wooden puppet hand on Professor Claudine Storbeck’s desk and the fingers are curled in the sign for love. It’s an almost perfect summing up of what has underpinned her journey at the Wits Centre for Deaf Studies in the past two decades. The centre’s evolution over 23 years can’t be separated from her personal driving force, passion and purpose. Professor Storbeck is director at the centre, which she started as a one-woman show. She joined Wits after leaving a teaching career of about six years at St Vincent’s School for the Deaf in Johannesburg. One of her first decisions as director was to reach out to a friend and fellow teacher, Dr Lucas Magongwa (BA Ed 1994, BA Ed Hons 2004, MA 2008, PhD 2020). Dr Magongwa was a teacher and one of the first deaf principals in the country at the time. She convinced him to join her on the journey in tertiary education in 2002. Today Dr Magongwa is a lecturer and the head of deaf education at the university. The centre now offers honours and masters level training and constantly raises the bar for quality education and learning focused on the deaf child’s needs. It doubles as a platform for the deaf community to define their needs themselves and to push for better services and standards. Dr Magongwa says: “Coming to Wits to assist Claudine in the training of teachers of the deaf was a bigger contribution than focusing on a single school for the deaf – and I love it.” It was also an adjustment from teaching deaf school children to training hearing educators. It wasn’t easy in the early days. Professor Storbeck remembers: “I had to find the soft funding for Lucas’ position initially because there wasn’t a budget for a salary at
