The Stories Behind: NUS group SIGNapse strives to serve deaf community better

SINGAPORE – In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic back in 2021, I had a brief stint as a safe entry officer during a school break. It was just a convenient way for a teenager to pass the time instead of rotting at home over the semester break.

And while I saw a pandemic-related job as an opportunity to make money during a long break, then 20-year-old polytechnic nursing graduate Serene Yap saw it as a way to give back to the community.

Ms Yap, now 22, worked as a part-time vaccination nurse at one of the vaccination centres for a few months.

“I decided to join so that I can utilise my skills and contribute to the Covid-19 relief efforts, as well as to gain clinical experiences communicating with people with different profiles,” she said.

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But unbeknownst to her, her time working at the vaccination centre would spark an interest in sign language. 

Ms Yap recounted to me an encounter she had with a woman who arrived at the vaccination centre with a note prepared on her phone, informing the staff that she was deaf.

Ms Yap had to communicate with the woman mostly by typing out what she needed to say and by pointing to words on the Covid vaccine brochure.

But at the end of their interaction, Ms Yap signed the simple phrase “thank you” to her patient. It was something she had learned on YouTube.

“The moment I signed the word ‘thank you’ to her, I could literally see her eyes light up. She was very happy,” said Ms Yap.

The episode, she added, showed her the importance of learning another person's language in order to better communicate with them.

“The experience also reminded me of how speaking in a language or dialect that is familiar to my patients helps provide a sense of closeness that ensures my patients feel comfortable to share any concerns (they may have), which is an important element in healthcare services,” said Ms Yap.

Her encounter with the deaf patient inspired her to seek out a sign language co-curricular activity when she enrolled in the nursing degree programme at the National University of Singapore (NUS) two years ago.

When she discovered on Telegram a club that offered free sign language classes for healthcare students, she quickly signed up.

WHAT SIGNAPSE DOES 

Signing up for the classes led to her joining NUS’ SIGNapse, a student-led sign language interest group formed by healthcare students in 2016.

The group offers basic and advanced sign language classes. 

Students have to undergo basic sign language lessons and pass an assessment before being allowed to progress to the advanced classes.

After going through all the classes, Ms Yap came back as an instructor to pass on her knowledge to other students.

She also joined the group’s executive committee, becoming co-chairperson. Year Three medicine student Ethan Ong, 21, is the other co-chair.

The group tries to attract more students to join them by posting snippets of information about deaf culture on Instagram and Facebook, and by song-signing popular songs on TikTok.

The group has more than a thousand followers on Instagram and another 300-plus on Facebook.

They also hold song-signing performances at school events, in front of parents and faculty.

The interest group has about 50 to 60 students in their classes at any one time, averaging at about 200 to 300 students every year, for the last six years.

“At SIGNapse, we provide them with a positive and relaxing platform to learn about sign language. I think that is one of the reasons students are attracted to join our classes and events,” Ms Yap said.

I sat in for one of their sign language classes.

During the two-hour lesson, the instructors went through different anatomy-centric terms with the class, showing them how to do each sign and explaining its similarities to other terms with similar hand signs.

They also played games using hand signs.

Although it may seem tedious to attend classes in the evening after a long day at school, Mr Ong shared with me that the lessons paid off for him when he encountered a deaf person.

During one of his stints at the accident and emergency department of a local hospital, a deaf patient came in experiencing “quite a lot of pain”.

“Everybody was quite stressed; the doctors were trying to communicate with him using pen and paper… furiously scribbling back and forth, and it was quite tense,” he recalled. 

But after the situation calmed down and the patient was treated, Mr Ong went back to converse with him in sign language. 

“It wasn't the smoothest conversation, but I could tell that he appreciated that. At least it makes him feel a bit more comfortable to engage in a language that he understood,” he said. 

After speaking with Mr Ong and Ms Yap, I was touched by their devotion to trying to be better versed in communicating with a segment of society that is often overlooked.

Perhaps as a journalist, it, too, would do me some good if I could learn to communicate beyond just English and my broken Chinese, so I can help to share the stories of those who can’t communicate with others in the way the rest of us do.