When you think, how do you do so – in words or pictures? Without language, you have no words. So how do you make sense of things around you? How do you explain or understand them, even within your own head? Without language, how can you be aware that what you feel is the same as other humans all around the world? Abstract thought becomes impossible, doesn’t it? Your world is limited to a very physical, "what I see and feel right here is everything" one, don’t you think?

Imagine being surrounded by people yet completely cut off from them. Imagine being isolated in a cocoon of silence, not understanding what others are saying or thinking, not belonging to the group because you can't understand them or talk to them.

This is the life of the profoundly deaf who have never had the opportunity to develop language. Thousands of deaf children in impoverished countries are denied lessons in sign language and spend their entire lives unable even to think coherently.  They simply don’t realise that it is possible to communicate with others.

Watch this short uplifting video about Patrick Otema from Uganda as he discovers for the first time in his life that language exists – and in a visual form he can understand. If you would like to get your fellow TOS members involved in a project to help the deaf, this video could be an ideal way of inspiring them.