VIDEO: Deaf Art Community Jogja (group hip hop bisu tuli) from Jogjakarta, Indonesia.



“In nature there’s no blemish but the mind, none can be called deformed but unkind” (William Shakespeare in Twelfth Night Act III Scene IV)

Never has God created imperfect people, or what-is-so-called ‘disabled’. People who call them as disabled are the most cruel people. God created people with the highest perfection and having the same right to develop their potentials to gain wealth.



Until these days, the lives of disabled people and deaf people in Indonesia are still marginalized both structurally and culturally. There is injustice to get their rights for education, jobs, health, social, culture, law, access for information, and public facilities use. In other word, there is discrimination toward disabled people in the society. Attitudes towards disability are quite bad in Indonesia, and there is a lingering association of impairment with wrong-doing.



Most people are embarrassed about disability, and deaf children are sometimes hidden away, especially in rural areas. Some of the Deaf people in the organisations we work with say their parents let them come to meetings in the hope that they will ‘become normal’ by forbidding them from using sign language. Faced with negative attitudes like this, Deaf children often grow up to have low self-esteem and little self-confidence.



Too many people are busy with their own importance; trying to get more money, chasing better carriers, and thinking to get higher positions, or even cheating for their own sakes as they have forgotten their surroundings that need their hands.



Through this paper, I would like to invite people to step into the proud of, emergent DEAF-WORLD and learn about its language, values, history, and concerns and to see a ‘real world’ surround us, but might have not been seen or heard by our very own eyes & ears to ‘open’ other people’s eyes to see a deaf community that is considered as a minor-marginal-community in Indonesia as disabled people, while not many people realize that deaf community is not disabled people but they see themselves as ‘language minority group’ who are fighting to get their right of sign language as their first mother tongue language.



Through our presentation, we will guide all of you to have a wonderful journey tour into the deaf world in Indonesia, their deaf culture, sign language, deaf education and their life. We will have it through our interactive workshop, to give you an opportunity to experience a little of what the works is like for a Deaf person.



In everyday like, Deaf people try to overcome barriers to communication in an environment that is designed to meet needs of hearing people. We hope that this workshop will provide a valuable insight into the life of Deaf people.



By attending the workshop, you will gain a better understanding of how to communicate with deaf people (communication strategies), how to be deaf like is, some basic Indonesian sign, how deaf enjoy the music and culture art in theatre. Indonesia News video clip: Deaf Art Community Jogja