Empowering deaf women in Malaysia through sign poetry

THE British Council through its Connections Through Culture programme is supporting a showcase of new poetry works by Malaysian deaf women in English and Malaysian Sign Language. The language is also known as BIM, which goes beyond an acronym and is an identity of the deaf community.

A virtual poetry event that celebrates Malaysian deaf women’s poetry in BIM will premiere this Saturday at 8.30pm MYT. Called Empowering Deaf Women in Malaysia Through Sign Poetry, the event will be held on Zoom.

Interested parties may register via: https://tinyurl.com/BIMpoetry to attend. The event will also be streamed live on Malaysian Sign Language and Deaf Studies Association’s Facebook page.

This Saturday’s show is the culmination of a five-month-long online collaboration. It started in 2021 between Malaysians and British & Irish artists/educators. 13 Malaysian deaf women took part in the training.

BIM is the language used by the deaf community in Malaysia. The language is integral to the community’s identity, thus it is a first for the community to have fully accessible poetry training online.

This training was exclusively designed for deaf women in Malaysia. The women participants have successfully produced a total of six poems related to women’s experiences, roles and struggles. The training was facilitated by three poet educators: one deaf and two hearing.

Paula Clarke, a deaf educator from Belfast, is a recognised sign poet and an accomplished actress in the UK and Ireland. Fluent in Irish Sign Language and British Sign Language, it was her first time doing an international training, and on Zoom.

“It is a really wonderful experience for me, as I enjoyed working with deaf women from different backgrounds on the other side of the world. We have so much in common, it is our deafness and our love of sign language that unites deaf people everywhere.”

The hearing poet educators are Elaine Foster and Dr Sheena Baharudin. They have further empowered the deaf women with their knowledge of poetry and multimedia poetry respectively.

It is also important to recognise deaf women leaders of the deaf community, Jessica Mak and Ho Koon Wei, who constantly provided facilitation, consultation, training, and mentoring support to participants.

The women participants have learned so much by connecting through deaf culture and sign poetry, exploring deaf feminism and how deaf culture plays a role in developing sign poetry.

Empowering Deaf Women in Malaysia Through Sign Poetry project was conceptualised by Dr Anthony Chong (Malaysia) and supported by Shane Gilchrist (UK). Both Chong and Gilchrist co-led the project behind the curtains to allow the project’s women participants a safe and creative space to create poems.

The concept was inspired by the release of Dr Anthony Chong’s BIM poem “The Poet Is The Poem” in 2021. The production of the BIM poem was made possible with the grants received by Elaine Foster under Connections Through Culture (CTC) in 2019.

The deaf community in Malaysia is looking forward to the many generations of younger deaf Malaysians being trained by the project’s extraordinary deaf women poets. – The Vibes, February 25, 2022