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The, Ecuadorfan rnaif / COJ1'LWLUYUf(j Hfsto'(1 ifthe rneqfin Ecuadorand the ~nt ifAwareness MIGUEL SANTILLAN ne of the problems inherent in describing the history of the deaf community in Ecuador is that there are no official historical records about deaf people in the country. Aside from a few references in school records and in the records of the adult deaf associations, resources for developing the history of Ecuadorian deaf people are limited to surveys and interviews with deaf individuals. In fact, this paper represents the first attempt at a written history of deaf people in Ecuador. The majority of information contained here has been extracted from deaf people's memories. In the past, deaf people in Ecuador were ridiculed by society. They were believed to be sick individuals who were unable to learn anything, and they were primarily used as laborers for difficult physical work. Not a single institution was concerned about their welfare at that time. This situation began to change in 1940, when Enriqueta Santillan, the pioneer of special education for deaf people in Ecuador, began a special institution for the education of deaf children in the city of Quito. At the beginning, deaf students were mixed in classes with other disabled children, but later they were placed into their own classes. The institute did not have a permanent location until the ladies of the Kiwanis Club persuaded Mayor Jaime del Castillo to donate a large parcel of land for the school. The building itself was erected thanks to the efforts of the ladies of the Engineers of Pichincha. In 1977, the school was given the name "Enriqueta Santillan Cepeda." Twelve years after Santillan's school opened, the wives of ambassadors to Ecuador began an institute called Mariana de Jesus. This institute, which was dedicated to providing free education to deaf and blind children, opened in Quito in November 1952. The ambassadors' wives later also formed the Friends of the Blind Foundation. In 1964, again in Quito, the Aida Penafiel de Dobronsky Institute was created as a branch of the municipal Espejo School. Its founder, Magdalena Guevara, worked with both deaf and mentally retarded children. The two groups were later separated, and the school's name was changed to the National Institute of Hearing and Language. 120 THE DEAF WAY ~ Deaf Cultures Around the World The Early Influence of the Deaf Sports Clubs In 1966, Guillermo Zurita, a Mariana de Jesus graduate, began organizing meetings for deaf people in Quito so they could participate in sporting events. This small group, originally composed of only four or five members, communicated through the sign language the members had learned in school. The group later became known as the Ecuador Sporting Club. During the early 1970s, several deaf people associated with the Municipal Institute of Hearing and Language in the city of Guayaquil organized a soccer team. This team had its first friendship match with the group in Quito in 1973. In 1975, the deaf adults from Quito and Guayaquil traveled to Maracaibo, Venezuela , to playa friendship sports match. Later, a group of deaf people from the Quito Society traveled to Colombia. Those trips resulted in signs from Venezuela and Colombia being incorporated into the Ecuadorian language, just as Ecuadorian signs were shared with those countries. Once contact had been made with other countries, the Quito sports club became more sophisticated as an organization and, as a consequence, new deaf members started to join. The organization began to develop new goals and objectives, geared toward other activities in addition to sports. Thus, this large group gave birth to a smaller group with the same objectives but with different activities. The groups that began to be formed were in many ways a continuation of the school environment, because alumni tended to join the associations. The work of the associations was very difficult, because they had to fight against people who neither understood nor respected them. At first, the Quito club received the support of a religious group that let them use a room in the church building on certain days. This arrangement did not last long, however, and the deaf members decided to collect membership fees so they could finance their own meeting place. Finally, on December 5, 1975, the first Deaf Assembly met in the city of Quito. The fifty people who attended elected a provisional board and agreed upon several basic goals: .:. To create a society called the Fray Luis Ponce de Le6n Society, a name suggested by Mrs...

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