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

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We use it to express our opinions,

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to make statements,

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to agree or disagree,

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to reveal our innermost emotions,

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

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We use it to share ideas worth spreading.

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But what if you had no voice?

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What if you had no speech?

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Malala Yousafzai,
a human rights activist,

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the youngest person to win
the Nobel Peace Prize

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and who was a victim of attempted
murder by the Taliban

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

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

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that is one billion people.

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

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that is how many people have a disability.

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

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the vast majority of that being
a communication disability,

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that affects their daily functioning.

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

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That is the same amount.

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Within South Africa, 
200,000 people cannot talk.

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Let me put this in context.

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The largest stadium in South Africa
is the FNB Stadium

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

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for the rocking U2 band.

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

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If you had to fill this stadium twice,

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

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Individuals with disabilities
are also four times more likely

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

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

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What if you couldn't tell a loved one

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

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

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and tell them what happened?

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

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in order to help you
with the court preparation process?

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

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What if you couldn't testify?

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What if you just had no words?

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So how do we assist
these individuals with no voices?

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How do we help in ending
the silence with them?

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We use AAC: Alternative
and Argumentative Communication.

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What is AAC, you may ask?

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

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the world-renowned physicist.

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

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that speaks to his computer
and then speaks for him.

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

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He also uses his computer
with software as voice output.

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Martin has overcome many challenges

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and has gone on to do
inspirational things.

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

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

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She is using AAC, she is using
her Android phone

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with software as her voice.

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Being a victim of rape
and not having a voice

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has so much impact and it can be damaging

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because we may be pregnant

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or expose to diseases

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and can be discovered
on a later stage or never.

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

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

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it can be sign language like
Hanelle spoke about

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or it can be a picture-based
alphabet board.

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

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Dr. Stephen Hawking and Martin Pistorius,

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

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So how do we assist these individuals?

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

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are not literate and
do not stand schooling.

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How do we help them?

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We use pictures.

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

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Currently, there is no complete language

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that is in the form of pictures
or graphic symbols.

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

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of 25,000 to 35,000 words,

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you could see how this would be
a mammoth task

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to try and identify pictures
for all of this.

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

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There are many researches
identifying vocabulary for context

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that are able to put it on
a communication board

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or program it into a communication device.

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But many times, important context
vocabulary is not identified,

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like being a victim of crime.

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This is an example of a picture
communication board.

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

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

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It's not as easy as you think.

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

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in identifying this important vocabulary
and matching into pictures

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

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

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Our work at the Center for Alternative
and Argumentative Communication

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at the University of Pretoria

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

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

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

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to disclose the crime to a loved one.

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What we are also doing is identifying
vocabulary that is needed

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

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

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We are also looking at identifying
vocabulary that is needed

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during the court preparation process
with the social worker.

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And what my contribution was,
is identifying the important vocabulary

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that is needed to testify in court.

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

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

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

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

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not only for the legal professionals,

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but for the families and familiar
communication partners

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that are working for these individuals

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who have been victims of crime.

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AAC in the form of pictures
has the amazing ability

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to bring these individuals' voices forth.

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

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and the right device
to be able to communicate.

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The risks of them being a victim of crime

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or a repeat victim
could decrease drastically.

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

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

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who cannot talk, specifically
those who are not literate.

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If we could give them
this vital vocabulary,

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they would be empowered
to be heard and not hurt.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)