A family with a Deaf toddler in West Auckland had their lives changed by a sign language programme that's now set to extend its reach to more whānau.
Deaf Aotearoa's First Signs service, which supports families of Deaf children under five, has received a funding boost of $2.8million for the next four years.
The money, from this year's budget, will see the programme reach 280 families per year by 2026, up from around 190 families right now.
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Deaf Aotearoa says this is less than 20% of the Deaf children in New Zealand who could benefit from the service, lagging behind the first-world international standard of reaching 50% of Deaf children under the age of five through similar programmes.
The organisation says there's a backlog of families in need, as 200 new Deaf babies are born each year.
First Signs Team Leader, Natasha Cloete said, "the demand for First Sign is huge, we're trying to grow the service but of course, we have funding limits."
"With that extra funding it is a huge relief because we will be able to recruit more staff," she said.
"It means we can hire more facilitators to support children in remote areas."
Lisa Fitisemanu's son, Omni, was diagnosed as Deaf or hard of hearing after his newborn hearing tests.
He's now three, and the family's been connected with the First Signs programme for two-and-half years now.
"We wanted to do anything we could to be able to communicate with Omni, even if it wasn't spoken word, we were more than happy to learn a new language.
"It started off just us but as soon as we knew we could invite our whānau we were like, 'Everyone, come on!'"
"It's been really fun to have it with our extended family," Fitisemanu said.
Their teacher, Rodney Simchowitz said, "it means the whole whānau can be supporting the child 24/7 and polishing his sign.
"It's really important to educate early because you don't want to delay that language acquisition."
Deaf Aotearoa Chief Executive Lachlan Keating said, "eventually we would like to provide this [First Signs] service to all 1000 families that have children under the age of five years."
Fitisemanu said she feels for those families who don't have access to the support.
"My heart goes out to them, we don't know how we would communicate with Omni without First Signs.
"I wish this programme went on forever."
Omni's dad, Jarom Fitisemanu said, "Our goal is to do whatever we can to get Omni ready for when he grows up and becomes more independent.
"Programmes like this First Signs, it's a step closer to that goal that we're trying to achieve, so hopefully the funding keeps going up."
The parents say before having Omni, they knew nothing about the Deaf community.
They say the further they go in their sign language journey, they realise what a privilege it is to be a part of the community.
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