Deaf in North Macedonia

People Name:	Deaf
Country:	North Macedonia
10/40 Window:	No
Population:	10,000
World Population:	49,660,750
Primary Language:	Language unknown
Primary Religion:	Christianity
Christian Adherents:	65.50 %
Evangelicals:	0.00 %
Scripture:	Unspecified
Online Audio NT:	No
Jesus Film:	No
Audio Recordings:	No
People Cluster:	Deaf
Affinity Bloc:	Deaf
Progress Level:

Introduction / History

There are about 6,000 deaf people who are registered in the Deaf association. When parents find out that their child is deaf they send the child to а special center in the capital city, Skopje, where they get tested and diagnosed. After that they go to study in elementary school in Bitola. For high school they go to Skopje and they are placed in specializations: one is for men—locksmith and the other is for women—textile work. After that they can study in university but not all the majors. Only about five people have graduated from university.

In North Macedonia the deaf population is not very well educated. Most of the teachers in the school don't know sign language. When a deaf student graduates from high school his level of education is equivalent to that of an eleven-year-old non-deaf child. Their options for education are very limited. This child lives separate from their parents from seven years old. There are about 25 translators in the country and all of them work in institutions. For that reason they are not available to translate for the deaf people in ordinary life. Because of those problems the deaf people in North Macedonia live very isolated lives.

What Are Their Lives Like?

There are two sign languages in North Macedonia—old and new. Deaf people are using the old language. The new is used only officially but many of the deaf people don't understand it. North Macedonia has one primary school and one high school for deaf people, so the language throughout the country is the same for all the nationalities living in North Macedonia.

Other Balkan sign languages differ in both grammar and vocabulary. The author of this profile only understands about 50% but can still communicate by understanding the context of what is signed.

What Are Their Beliefs?

They don't have information about God because they don't read well. They imitate religious traditions that they see other people do without understanding them.

There are no known believers among the Macedonian deaf people. It's hard for them to respond to the Gospel because they have difficulty understanding the Scriptures because of a lack of vocabulary in the Macedonian sign language to explain many of the concepts of Christianity. You need to explain the Gospel as you would to a child.

What Are Their Needs?

There are not any parts of the Bible translated in Macedonian sign language. There are five videos of stories from the Bible that have been recently released. Half have not heard who Jesus is.

Most of the churches in North Macedonia use Macedonian language in their services without translation into sign language. There are no Christian congregations in North Macedonia serving the deaf people.

There are no cross-cultural missionaries in North Macedonia right now serving among deaf people. They are very needed especially for literacy, education and church planting.