Participating in family life for the first time: Mary Anna’s story

SIL Papua New Guinea Wycliffe Today Winter 2025 Edition

Mary Anna is a happy 11-year-old girl living with her family in Papua New Guinea. She loves talking and playing with her parents, but she has not always been able to communicate with them so easily. Growing up Deaf, Mary Anna experienced isolation from her family. Unable to fully communicate beyond basic gestures, her parents felt desperate about how to talk with their daughter.

At the age of four, they sent Mary Anna to the Red Cross Inclusive Education Resource Centre (RCIERC) where she started to learn Papua New Guinea Sign Language (PNGSL) from her Deaf teacher, Noah. Mary Anna picked up PNGSL easily, yet her family struggled to learn it, despite years of Noah’s dedicated home visits.

A tangible shift in the family’s ability to communicate with Mary Anna occurred earlier this year when 26 new PNGSL Bloom books, and the related Luksave app, were launched. These were developed by the PNG Deaf Association, supported by SIL, and funded by the Wycliffe Relief and Development Foundation. These resources have been a huge blessing to Mary Anna and her family to learn PNGSL in a user-friendly way and at their own pace. The Bloom books and Luksave app, with their clear illustrations, definitions, and signs, made vocabulary acquisition more intuitive and accessible for the whole family.

Mary Anna’s parents have actively embraced the opportunity to learn alongside their daughter. Their newfound shared language is fostering greater understanding, strengthening family bonds, and enhancing Mary Anna’s inclusion and sense of belonging in her family. Mary Anna is so excited about the change in her family that she is sharing the app and promoting it to her Deaf friends, other family members, teachers and neighbours.

Mary Anna’s dad, Nime, is thrilled that he can enjoy communicating with his daughter. He shares:

Thank you! We are happy with the Bloom books and Luksave app. We will be very happy if short Bible stories can also be created. That will really help us as a family to broaden [Mary Anna’s] faith.

The silence and isolation that once separated Mary Anna from her family has now been replaced by a beautiful sign language. Mary Anna’s story is a powerful reminder that when communication barriers are broken, lives can be transformed and families can be brought together.

For more information about the PNGSL resources that are making a difference for people like Mary Anna, visit https://wrdf.org.au/pacific/png/png-deaf-literacy/