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)