Gambia Association of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (GADHOH) is appealing to individual, institutions and general public to desist from giving money to deaf beggars on street in The Gambia
This warning made in a statement signed by by Lamin M Ceesay, Development officer GADHOH and obtained on Tuesday, saying majority of the deaf street beggars are foreign deaf from namely; Nigeria, Mali, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Serra Leone parading themselves as beggars and also considered as deaf people from The Gambia.
The statement indicated that the foreign deaf baggers use fake envelopes to solicit for funds on streets, churches, mosques, workplace, inside ferry, at the terminals, in commercial buses and other public places in the name of GADHOH, also individuals and companies.
“These foreign deaf beggars are either non-Muslims or non-Christian, but act as Muslims or Christians whenever they go about their daily business with these fake papers in the name of the organization, clubs, shops and others.
“They will use the money you give them to take alcohol abuse, our married Gambian Deaf women, and immoral behaviors. Some are nationals from neighboring countries such as Nigeria, Mali, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone parading themselves as deaf people from The Gambia,” the statement pointed out.
The statement continued “Once again, it has come to the attention of the management and staff of the Gambia Association of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (GADHOH) that many of foreigner deaf street beggars are storming The Gambia and using the fake name of our Association and its special interest group by using a donation card to beg for money.”
“GADHOH has expressed concern and dissatisfaction over the way and manner many foreigner deaf people use the name of our association to beg for money and warned that such action is totally unacceptable in our deaf society, and we don’t want this kind of bad practice to be spread within The Gambia Deaf community, who are well known for their hard work in gaining self-employment like carpentry, catering, hairdressing, welding, building, and business, some are working with private sectors like painting firm agencies, school as a teacher, hotels, others in government institution like GPA, GPPC, Police force and so on,” the statement highlighted.
More so, “these foreign deaf beggars damaged the good image of their country and want to do the same thing in the Gambia. GADHOH is the only registered deaf organization in The Gambia by Law.
“Therefore we hope that the police and public in our country will cooperate with us to clampdown on such bad practice which may spoil the good image of our deaf community and The Gambia in general. We are speaking with enough evidence at hand.
“The Gambian Deaf want to be prospering through their hard work like how they were trained and thought by their parents and teachers. But never on these fake intentions so called street begging towards the innocent people of The Gambia,” the statement noted.
“We are willing to join hands with your firm /institution in order to protect and safeguard our sovereign nation – The Gambia from these international deaf criminals hence our communities are for the law/rule and those laws/rules are for our communities and therefore these so called foreign Deaf Street beggars should stop,” the statement stated.
