A handbook providing tips for nurses to better communicate with people unable to hear and help them integrate into the community made its debut on March 29 in Ho Chi Minh City.

The booklet, along with a Vietnamese-subtitled DVD on life skills and sign language, was issued by the Centre for Research and Education of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (CED), the only social organisation for the deaf in Vietnam .

It shapes part of a project enriching teaching and learning documents for people who have problems with hearing, sponsored by the non-governmental Education for Development (EFD).

The brochure provides information on ways of communication used by hearing-impaired people and a number of steps to assist them in studying and protecting their ears.

Additional documents should be made available for the hearing impaired to support their future social integration and independent life-leading, said Director of the centre Duong Phuong Hanh, who is also Secretary General of International Federation of Hard of Hearing People (IFHOH) and President of the Asia-Pacific Federation of the Hard of Hearing and Deafened (APFHD).

Vietnam has more than 1 million hearing impaired people, including over 400,000 children of school age. The country houses 70 schools or centres that cater for people with hearing problems, and these are mainly found in big cities.-VNA