The Gallaudet in Nigeria-Africa-led Strengthening Deaf Education, Empowerment, and Employment (Deaf-E³) activity, a three-year grant that aims to advance K-12 bilingual deaf education for employment and life opportunities toward the empowerment of deaf, hard of hearing, and deafblind children and youth in Nigeria, has been extended to September 30, 2024.

Deaf-E³, sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has been granted a No Cost Extension through September 2024. This means that USAID will not allocate additional funding to the Deaf-E³ activity, but will grant more time to achieve pre-approved deliverables. This extension allows us to ensure that Deaf-E³ meets its objectives effectively and thoroughly for the sustainability of the work.

DeafWorlds (DDW), a global organization that strives to advance the self-determination of signing deaf communities by strengthening local capacity in developing countries, will complete its contributions to Deaf-E³ as the sub-awardee by the original early May end date. This is because DDW successfully completed their Deaf-E³ objectives, surpassing original targets, and activities and does not require additional time. We look forward to future collaborations with DDW and appreciate all that they contributed to the success of Deaf-E³.

Deaf-E³ aims to address the educational disparities and marginalization faced by deaf, hard of hearing, and deafblind children and youth in Nigeria by building the capacity of four groups who are integral to advancing basic education that fully meets the needs of deaf, hard of hearing, and deafblind Nigerians through capacity building of four groups:

1. Multilingual-multimodal pedagogies deaf educators, administrators, and Federal Ministry of Education representatives;
2. Deaf-led organizations, Nigerian National Association of the Deaf, Deaf Teachers Association of Nigeria, and the Deaf Womens’ Association of Nigeria:
3. Interpreter educators: and
4. USAID and other development actors.

“We are immensely proud of all that Deaf-E³ has achieved to date and look forward to continuing this momentum as we work towards our goals,” said Provost Khadijat K. Rashid, ’90. “Thank you for your ongoing dedication and commitment to the success of the Deaf-E³ project.