Thud… Thud…
It’s the steady sound one hears in a small workshop, around a residential neighborhood of Kupondole. Inside, Bhima is carefully hammering a brass sheet, crafting a delicate design. Beside her, Mina holds a blowtorch to form a polished piece, firing it into what will soon become a pair of earrings.
They communicate constantly through hand movements and facial expressions, one might find hard to understand. Their silent conversation is expressive yet invisible to most.
Bhima and Mina are supported by Sano Paila, an organization that works with rescued and marginalized women. Today, they are more than jewelry makers. They are mentors who train women like themselves who have long been pushed to the margins. They teach through interpreters, demonstrations and gestures, in a space built on inclusion.
Their story is a silver lining in the deaf population. Beneath their story lies the hardship, the good and the bad aspects of being raised in a society where deaf inclusion might not be as perfect as it claims to be.
Meeting the Interpreter
Ramita, 23, spoke candidly about how hard it is being an interpreter as someone who just entered the field.
She comes from Mugu; her own brother was born deaf, prompting her to learn Nepali Sign Language (NSL). She took a 3-month NSL course and an exam to become an interpreter. However, there aren't any official licenses designating one as an interpreter.
Everyone takes a short 3 to 6 month workshop and earns their degree as an interpreter. National Federation of the Deaf Nepal (NFDN) states that due to this lack of system, interpreters often lack credibility and may not even be seen as a career among the larger population.
According to Deepak Majhi, section officer at the Department of Inclusive Education, CEHRD, Nepal currently lacks a formal licensing system for interpreters. This makes it difficult to track exact numbers or professional qualifications. A draft policy to establish such licensing is under internal discussion but has not been made public.
As of 2025, the NFDN says there are approximately 131 trained NSL interpreters in the country. Just 25 work full-time, and around 10 work freelance.
Understanding the Deaf Population
According to the 2021 Nepal Census, around 51,373 people are listed as deaf, and about 112,000 with hearing-related disabilities, including hard of hearing and deaf-blind individuals.
While the World Health Organization estimates that around 15% of any national population lives with a disability, Nepal’s official census puts the number at just 2.2%.
Even the recent census is seen by many as inaccurate. National Federation of Disabled-Nepal (NFDN) believes that census enumerators often lack adequate training to identify various forms of disability, resulting in underreporting or misclassification.
In contrast, the 2022 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey found that around 6 – 7% of people reported some level of functional difficulty across six domains, including hearing. The discrepancy highlights how official statistics can obscure the true scale of exclusion faced by Nepal’s deaf community.
Devi Datta Acharya, the chairperson of NFDN, also confirmed that a dedicated disability survey is in progress. “We are working with UNDP and the National Statistics Office to do a survey. Till now, there are questionnaires prepared, and we are planning to conduct it from January. We still have budget constraints, we are fundraising the 21 crores needed for the survey.”
For the deaf population, with around 131 interpreters, that is roughly one interpreter for every 4,000 deaf individuals.
Voices of Bhima and Mina
Mina mentions, “We don’t have much problem going around, we use sign language with people and since I can read, I ask people to write things.” However, Bhima does not know how to read or write, although she is learning now, in the absence of an interpreter or a trusted companion like Mina, basic interactions become difficult.
They live together and have known each other since Bhairahawa Deaf School. Around 2009, they moved to Kathmandu and have worked with Sano Paila ever since. “I also want to know what happens in the world, I have a phone too but it is kind of limited, since I can’t hear,” says Bhima.
“I also want to know my rights as a person and people do tell us about it but it is limited information, and sometimes I think it is okay with the amount of information I have,” says Mina.
Education and Language Barriers
Ramita recalls her own experience, “My brother also used to communicate with local sign language, we did not understand his true feelings until I learned Nepali Sign Language (NSL).”
Access to NSL remains limited outside urban centers. “It’s difficult for rural people like us to learn NSL because we have to leave home and travel far for education,” she adds.
According to NDFN, Nepal has 22 special schools and 174 integrated schools with resource classes for hearing-impaired students. These schools serve about 15,000 students or just 13.6% of the total deaf population.
The Central Campus for the Deaf in Naxal has programs till Bachelor level education but that is also limited to Bachelors in Education, which has faced criticism for its limited scope and outdated curriculum.
“The problem with developing Nepali Sign Language is that it is a rigorous, long process,” Majhi explained. New vocabulary must first be understood, practiced, and accepted by the community before inclusion in official dictionaries.
With a slow but steady process, NFDN has managed to have 4,700 vocabularies in the Advanced NSL dictionary. This is limited compared to Nepali dictionary, Nepali Shabdakosh’s app contains over 150,000 words to search - including compound, borrowed, and technical words.
The vocabulary also forces deaf people to limit their knowledge. They are barred from learning other subjects such as science, mathematics, etc., which include a lot of English language as well as vast vocabularies.
NFDN shares experiences where there are courses related to computer engineering in Dhaulagiri Deaf Residential Secondary School but there is a shortage of NSL teachers and experts who can teach in sign language.
In a conversation with Bhola Yadav, principal of Siraha Deaf School, mentioned that the school has 10 teachers for 109 deaf students, from class 1-10. “There is a shortage of skilled Sign Language teachers. Sometimes we have to combine 2-3 classes for the teacher to manage.”
He emphasized that the limited vocabulary makes it difficult for students to study subjects like mathematics and science. Scientific concepts often require multiple levels of translation, explaining unfamiliar words before teaching the actual material.
This complexity results in a cycle where deaf students receive incomplete education and face limited job prospects.
They receive vocational training like Bhima and Mina, where they learn skills like sewing, craft-making, jewelry making, etc.
Mina expressed, “I would never go back to sewing. People did not understand me and it was hard to communicate too.”
Policy, Budgeting, and the Struggle for Recognition
“Sign language access and interpreter services are fundamental rights but Nepal’s legal and budgeting systems have yet to establish clear frameworks to operationalize them,” says Majhi.
Nepal is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). It regularly declares its commitment to inclusive education and universal access. But a closer look reveals a disconnect between intention and reality.
“There are budget constraints, poor local awareness, and most importantly, deaf people are excluded from planning decisions,” says Santosh KC, Chairman of NDFN, with the help of an interpreter.
In fact, Sunita Thapa, a lawmaker in the Gandaki Provincial Assembly, is likely the only deaf person serving in any government policy-making body in Nepal.
According to KC, NDFN has repeatedly proposed the development of a Research and Training Center on its land in Tokha. “For the past 7 to 8 years, the proposal has been rejected in every annual budget,” he said.
This year, however, the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens approved a budget of NPR 40 lakhs to initiate the project, with work expected to begin around Kartik.
The center is envisioned as a space to train NSL interpreters and educators and to reduce training costs that are currently spent on hotels and logistics.
In FY 2080/81 (2023/24), NDFN received:
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NPR 20 lakhs from the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens for NSL training and interpreter services,
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NPR 2 lakhs from the Ministry of Education for NSL alphabet charts for children,
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NPR 10 lakhs from the Department of Children for the NSL dictionary project,
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And NPR 6 lakhs to organize a national Deaf Youth Camp focused on advocacy.
All of these funds were secured through project-based proposals, rather than systematic inclusion in annual budgets.
The funds are used across all seven provinces, including residential training programs in partnership with local governments. “We collaborate with municipalities and provincial bodies so that trained NSL interpreters are available locally,” KC explained. About 15 municipalities now have interpreters as a result.
Despite these localized efforts, regional disparities remain stark. Based on community-level observations, NDFN has identified Madhesh Province and Karnali Province as the most underserved. These regions lack trained personnel and structured programs for addressing deaf individuals' communication needs, leaving thousands even further behind.
But KC believes the support is still insufficient.
“There’s still a deep lack of understanding about the needs of disabled people within our bureaucracy. That’s why we don’t get enough budget, or the right kind.”
Pilot Initiatives and Remaining Challenges
Over the past year, several pilot initiatives have aimed to address Nepal’s sign language interpreter shortage: Sanketik E‑Paath produced over 280 interactive NSL video modules for Grades 1 – 6.
Mero Sanket, a mobile app launched by the National Federation of the Deaf Nepal (NDFN) in 2021, provides offline sign language learning tools to over 300 classrooms and recorded over 2,500 downloads. Both tools aim to strengthen early-grade literacy and inclusive education for deaf children.
According to Majhi, new materials are being prepared in collaboration with NDFN to expand Math, Science, and Social Studies vocabulary this year.
At the local level, Kathmandu Metropolitan City appointed an NSL interpreter at its main help desk, and Karnali Province trained 16 government staff in sign language as part of a three-month pilot. Yet despite these efforts, the initiatives remain limited in scale.
Despite these efforts, the overall scale remains limited, and most programs are yet to be institutionalized.
“In medical emergencies outside Kathmandu, interpreters are often dispatched from the capital,” said Dinesh Shrestha, the information officer at NDFN. “By the time they arrive, the critical window often gets worse.”
Mr. Majhi remembers one such incident at Gandaki Hospital, Pokhara. “Deaf students from Sirjana School faced difficulties communicating with doctors due to the absence of interpreters, which was later resolved with school mediation,” says Majhi. It highlights how emergency response systems lack basic interpreter protocols.
According to NDFN, there have been multiple life-threatening or critical incidents where deaf individuals could not access essential services due to the lack of interpretation support.
One such case was, a deaf couple in Bagmati Province reportedly experienced a miscarriage due to a lack of interpreter support at a health facility. While the case was not officially documented, it was shared with NDFN staff by local sources. Names and identifying details have been withheld to protect the couple’s anonymity.
The staff were unable to communicate, and the couple had to bear the emotional toll without any support. In such cases, deaf individuals are expected to hire or wait for interpreters.
In the legal system, while some courts have begun providing interpretation services, payment is inconsistent. Interpreters are often partially compensated or not at all creating financial and procedural barriers to justice.
Deaf individuals also face communication hurdles in accessing public services like obtaining citizenship, passports, and disability identity cards. These offices rarely provide interpreters or alternative forms of communication.
Majhi confirmed that while interpreter services are recognized as a fundamental right under the UNCRPD, Nepal has yet to establish a legal framework for certification or deployment of interpreters across institutions.
The interpreter shortage becomes even more serious considering that many deaf Nepalis cannot read or write fluently. When no visual or sign-based communication is available, they are left completely without language.