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introduction
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the solution | final
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Introduction
According to the 2000 census carried
out by the IBGE – Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia
e Estatística (Brazilian Institute of Geography
and Statistics), there are 5,685,956 individuals with
hearing impairment in Brazil. The WHO (World Health
Organization) estimates that 3.5% of the Brazilian
population present some light-to-severe degree of
deafness. This population includes the oral deaf (who
do not use sign language) and the non-oral deaf (who
use LIBRAS or other signal languages to communicate).
On April 24, 2002, the Brazilian President and the
National Congress passed Law 10.436 recognizing LIBRAS
as the official means of communication and expression
for the deaf community (AJA, 2004).
The theme has been addressed by other research groups
in Brazil (Costa, 2001; Matuzawa, 2002; Crespo, 2003;
Franco, 2003). The FALIBRAS project (Silva, 2003),
which proposes an architecture for a virtual sign
language representation and training, deserves a special
mention.
The aforementioned data and a widespread feeling that
a large number of people are interested in contributing
to reduce the digital divide were the social motivations
to start the solution. From a technical viewpoint,
the environments proposed herein are the result of
a coordinated effort of groups interested in the subject.
On one hand are the solutions developed by the Information
Technology Department of the Federal University of
Alagoas: graW (Leite, 2002), which proposes an e-Learning
platform, and MATHEMA (Costa, 1995, 1998, 2002), which
proposes an architecture for Intelligent Tutoring
Systems. On the other hand, is the solution developed
by the DFJUG (Brasilia Java Users Group, 2004), which
develops the JavaS (Java for the Deaf) Program for
the purpose of training the deaf in order to place
them on the computer programming market. The first
task was to develop multimedia CD’s where the
deaf described in oral language and in LIBRAS the
various difficulties they had to face in their lives.
They described how having a cell phone helped them
overcome such difficulties while not having a cell
phone available at a particular moment put them in
difficult situations.
The Rybena project, developed by the DFJUG and CTS,
represents the effort of a community interested in
the digital inclusion of individuals with special
needs, particularly the deaf and blind communities.
This justifies the name of the solution (Rybena stands
for "communication" in Xavante, a Brazilian
native language). The core team set up to develop
the Rybena project included Java developers, and social
volunteers.
introduction
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the solution | final
remarks
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