Music to deaf – from Sabah's first sign language flash mob
Published on: Thursday, October 01, 2015
Kota Kinabalu: Bringing music to the hearing-impaired community is a feat that may sound impossible. However, that was exactly the mission accomplished by the #Deafjam initiative when a group of 10 deaf students from SMK Datuk Peter Mojuntin formed a flash mob using sign language in the heart of the city.The flash mob was done after a Mini Sign Language Workshop, as part of the #Deafjam project organised by creative collective Tapuk Tapuk.The project aimed at providing a platform for the deaf and hard of hearing community to share their language, said Tapuk Tapuk founder and creative director, Ana Jonessy, who led the flash mob at Le Meridien Hotel lobby, on Wednesday.
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"It is one of our ongoing projects. We try to create this environment where the deaf community is more involved in our daily lives, because so easily we forget the fact that they are not able to hear us. "And because of that, maybe because we don't know anyone deaf or we don't have anyone who is deaf in the family, we refuse to learn about sign language," Ana said, adding that it only took a few signs to learn to say hi or communicate with the community and bridge the gap."If more company learn sign languages, eventually, even though it may not change in a year or two, we may create more job opportunities for them," Ana said. Ana also said creative education that integrated elements which had always been thought belonged to the hearing community such as music and theatre were brought to the hearing-impaired community through the project, which was six-month-old Tapuk Tapuk's first socially responsible event.
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She added that the term 'jam' normally triggered music-related notions, therefore they added the pre-fix deaf to make people wonder as well as to make others understand that even though they were deaf, they could feel the beats.The deaf students of SMK Datuk Peter Mojuntin and Politeknik Kota Kinabalu are currently the deaf community involved in the project, with support from the Sabah Society for the Deaf, said Ana.
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Tapuk Tapuk organised Sabah's first sign language flash mob at two participating shopping malls, Oceanus Waterfront Mall and Suria Sabah Mall by 70 volunteers who were recruited via social media, together with 32 deaf students from SMK Datuk Peter Mojuntin and Politeknik Kota Kinabalu. Fourteen-year-old Jiral@Jerial Ezra or JC was happy to receive all the attention as well as to be part of the deaf awareness campaign that was done to lift all forms of prejudice in society that concerned people who are deaf or hard of hearing that often manifested as pity, avoidance or mockery.Her sign language was translated by the accompanying teacher Leong Lei Ling, who guided the students as they conducted the sign language workshop for members of the media.JC, who lost her hearing after a fall when she was seven, had two other siblings and she was open to help the others who could hear to master the sign language.She said she had got immune and did not feel discomfort when she was in public and was glad to have the opportunity to be included in the project.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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