Giving a Voice to the Voiceless | Robyn White | TEDxCapeTown

People with communication disabilities are often repeat victims as they often do not have the vocabulary or tools (the voice) to communicate what happened to a loved one or a professional in the criminal legal justice system.This talk is about ending the silence of these individuals who can not talk, and empower them to be heard, and not hurt!Robyn is a lecturer at the Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) at the University of Pretoria.  She has recently been chosen as a Fellow for the Tuks Young Research Leader Programme for 2016/2017 at the University of Pretoria. Robyn is currently busy with her PhD focused on the investigatory procedure disabled citizens have to deal with within the criminal justice system of South Africa.  Her passion started volunteering at a special needs school at the age of 16.

Robyn is a lecturer at the Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) at the University of Pretoria. She has recently been chosen as a Fellow for the Tuks Young Research Leader Programme for 2016/2017 at the University of Pretoria. Robyn is currently busy with her PhD focused on the investigatory procedure disabled citizens have to deal with within the criminal justice system of South Africa. Her passion started volunteering at a special needs school at the age of 16.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Our voice is our strongest
and most vital tool in life.

We use it to express our opinions,

to make statements,

to agree or disagree,

to reveal our innermost emotions,

to say 'yes', but to say
that important 'no'.

We use it to share ideas worth spreading.

But what if you had no voice?

What if you had no speech?

Malala Yousafzai,
a human rights activist,

the youngest person to win
the Nobel Peace Prize

and who was a victim of attempted
murder by the Taliban

once said: "We realize the importance
of our voices only when we are silenced".

15% of the world's population
has a disability,

that is one billion people.

Africa, as a continent, has one billion
people living in the continent,

that is how many people have a disability.

Furthermore, 190 million people
in the world have a severe disability,

the vast majority of that being
a communication disability,

that affects their daily functioning.

The population size of Pakistan
has a 190 million people there.

That is the same amount.

Within South Africa,
200,000 people cannot talk.

Let me put this in context.

The largest stadium in South Africa
is the FNB Stadium

and in 2011, 95,000 very excited fans
filled that stadium

for the rocking U2 band.

I was a part of that 95,000 audience,
there were a lot of people.

If you had to fill this stadium twice,

that is how many people
in South Africa have no voice.

Individuals with disabilities
are also four times more likely

to be victims of crime, compared
to their non-disabled peers.

And this is even a more alarming concern
in our developing countries.

What if you couldn't tell a loved one

that something horrible had happened
to you, like, you had been raped?

What if you couldn't go to
the police and give a statement

and tell them what happened?

What if you couldn't tell
the social worker what happened

in order to help you
with the court preparation process?

What if you couldn't tell the judge
what happened?

What if you couldn't testify?

What if you just had no words?

So how do we assist
these individuals with no voices?

How do we help in ending
the silence with them?

We use AAC: Alternative
and Argumentative Communication.

What is AAC, you may ask?

The most famous person
who uses AAC is Dr. Stephen Hawkin,

the world-renowned physicist.

He uses a sensor that is activated
by a small muscle in his cheek

that speaks to his computer
and then speaks for him.

Another well-known person is the
South-African born Martin Pistorius.

He also uses his computer
with software as voice output.

Martin has overcome many challenges

and has gone on to do
inspirational things.

He gave a TED Talk last year and
you should really go watch it.

But let me show you a video quickly
of my colleague Constance.

She is using AAC, she is using
her Android phone

with software as her voice.

Being a victim of rape
and not having a voice

has so much impact and it can be damaging

because we may be pregnant

or expose to diseases

and can be discovered
on a later stage or never.

So AAC can be in the form
of a tablet with software,

it can be a dedicated device designed
specifically for communication purposes,

it can be sign language like
Hanelle spoke about

or it can be a picture-based
alphabet board.

But what if the person who has
no voice is now not literate?

Dr. Stephen Hawking and Martin Pistorius,

they can read and write,
they can use text-to-speech.

So how do we assist these individuals?

A later study estimated that 90%
of our children with disabilities

are not literate and
do not stand schooling.

How do we help them?

We use pictures.

Or, like what we say in our field,
graphic symbols.

Currently, there is no complete language

that is in the form of pictures
or graphic symbols.

And if you think that the average person
has a vocabulary size

of 25,000 to 35,000 words,

you could see how this would be
a mammoth task

to try and identify pictures
for all of this.

So what we do if we identify
context-specific vocabulary?

There are many researches
identifying vocabulary for context

that are able to put it on
a communication board

or program it into a communication device.

But many times, important context
vocabulary is not identified,

like being a victim of crime.

This is an example of a picture
communication board.

But let me stop and ask you a question:
if you could, in one picture,

represent the word 'rape',
what would it be?

It's not as easy as you think.

That is why people like me
are investing our time and energy

in identifying this important vocabulary
and matching into pictures

so that in times of need, when a person
who is not literate, who has no voice,

and has been a victim of crime
can stand up and still tell their story.

Our work at the Center for Alternative
and Argumentative Communication

at the University of Pretoria

and currently a significant research project
is underway doing exactly this.

Currently what we have identified,
and this is one of the examples,

we are very proud of this work,
we identified vocabulary that is needed

to disclose the crime to a loved one.

What we are also doing is identifying
vocabulary that is needed

to give the statement to the police,
because we know the statement

forms a crucial part of evidence
when we go to court.

We are also looking at identifying
vocabulary that is needed

during the court preparation process
with the social worker.

And what my contribution was,
is identifying the important vocabulary

that is needed to testify in court.

Here are some examples:
[Who, where, what, when, how]

Next year, I will be embarking
on my PhD journey, what I'm aiming to do

is take all of this vocabulary, make it
readily available in the form of a toolkit

so that this can be used as a guideline
or a base practice model

not only for the legal professionals,

but for the families and familiar
communication partners

that are working for these individuals

who have been victims of crime.

AAC in the form of pictures
has the amazing ability

to bring these individuals' voices forth.

Imagine a world where every person
who couldn't talk had the right vocabulary

and the right device
to be able to communicate.

The risks of them being a victim of crime

or a repeat victim
could decrease drastically.

Let us stop for a moment and think
about those 200,000 individuals

and the vast majority of the 190
million people living in the world

who cannot talk, specifically
those who are not literate.

If we could give them
this vital vocabulary,

they would be empowered
to be heard and not hurt.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)