First exhibition in Flemish Sign Language with the ErfgoedApp

Deaf Flanders, Heritage House Sisters of Charity and FARO launch the exhibition"About Sisters and Deaf Girls" in Flanders' first deaf school. The guided tour with the ErfgoedApp is available in Flemish Sign Language (VGT) and in Dutch. The exhibition can be visited in the coming months by appointment at the Heritage House | Sisters of Charity JM in Ghent. The initiative was launched during World Deaf Day and the International Week of the Deaf.

About sisters and deaf girls

Jozef Petrus Triest lived most of his life on the spot where today Heritage House Sisters of Charity is housed. It was here in 1820 that the first school for the deaf in Flanders was founded by the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary. These women religious had moved into the Terhagen convent in Ghent's Molenaarstraat a few years earlier. To run the school, the young candidate sister Theresia Verhulst went specially to Paris to learn the sign language method of priest Abbé de l'Epée at the Institut National pour Sourds-Muets. After her return, she became the school's first headmistress until her death in 1854. During a tour with the ErfgoedApp , you will be shown information in Flemish Sign Language (VGT) and Dutch on your smartphone or tablet, as well as a lot of additional information such as photos and videos about the objects on display.

Engaging in Sign Language

Deaf Flanders and FARO hope that this first example will soon be followed up. With the ErfgoedApp museums and heritage organizations have the technology available to make information accessible to a broad target group. We expect that many museums and heritage organizations will use this first example to offer a tour in Flemish Sign Language (VGT) themselves.