Christie Birney with Councillor Raymond Farrell.
A Kesh woman is giving a voice to those who suffer from stammering across Fermanagh and the neighbouring counties of Tyrone and Derry.
As many as 17,500 suffer from the speech disorder yet it remains very much an unknown affliction in Northern Ireland with just two groups dealing with the issue. The most recent of these was set up by 21-year-old childcare assistant Christine Birney.
The former Devenish College pupil first discovered she had a stammer at the age of four and admitted early adolescence was a challenge.
“In primary school I would have got a lot of support from my friends and my teachers, but when I reached the High School things got much worse and I noticed my confidence going down, it was just peer pressure rising up.”
She continued: “It was a bit of bullying and it just put me low on confidence and affected my self-esteem, my self-image went down to rock bottom.”
Through studying childcare at South West College and beginning work at the Glendurragh Childcare Centre in Kesh two years ago Christine has rediscovered her confidence and has set up the local stammering group. The Northern Ireland Support For Stammering and Dysfluency group (NISSD) held its first meeting last month in Mahon’s Hotel and held a second monthly meeting just last week.
With the help of local UUP councillor Raymond Farrell Christine is now giving a voice to those isolated in the community.
“I decided to start a local support group here in County Fermanagh for two reasons. Firstly I wanted to provide a support network for other people who stammer (PWS). PWS generally feel isolated within the community in which they live and I wanted to provide somewhere for people to go to meet other PWS, for a chat over a cup of tea or coffee. I also set up the group to raise awareness.”
“I’ve been told to not let this thing ruin my life, I’ve been told to live as normal a life as possible, it’s just something I have to live with. The same as living with a mental disorder, you just have to get on with your life. It’s a part of my life, but it doesn’t run my life. It’s a part of me and no one or nothing will change that,” added Christine.
Mr Farrell praised Christine for her attitude and the work she has done so far in raising awareness .
“I want to commend her on the vision to get this group up and going, because there is no other group like this apart from Belfast and I think there is a real deficit there in terms of support for people. She has really shown great vision and leadership.
“It’s really about highlighting awareness and I think the film the King’s speech probably made people think more about stammering and what we want to do and Christine is taking a lead in this. It’s about socially interacting, generating awareness and making people feel not as isolated because sometimes people with a stammer can experience problems with bullying at school, isolation, problems with confidence and I suppose as life goes on it can also impact on their education development and employment prospects.”
If you suffer from a stammer or would like to know about the local group you can visit the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/nissd, twitter @nissd_tf or email nissd_tf@yahoo.com
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