By Akbar Restu Fauzi, Youth Movement Coordinator, Perkumpulan Pamflet Generasi and Kayla Lapiz, Linking, Learning and Communications Officer, Voice in Philippines and Indonesia

The wonderful journey continues for us at Pamflet, a repeat Empowerment grantee with Voice in Indonesia, as we continue to creatively make noise and stand up for our deaf youth community!

Pamflet is a youth-led organisation that strengthens youth’s participation in social movements and local youth initiatives. Our first Voice-funded project “This is Our Story”, in collaboration with Gerkatin Kepemudaan and Sedap Films, centred on enhancing the storytelling capacity of deaf youth to amplify their experiences and issues of inclusivity. It served as a platform for collaborative learning processes, developing deaf youth capacities in creating media content that help them engage meaningfully in campaigns and advocacy.

We trained youth in video blog production as well as the management of a website and social media accounts. Furthermore, we produced a short film entitled “Toko Musik”, leading to a public discussion about creating a more inclusive environment by bringing in a deaf perspective to non-deaf people. We also submitted a narrative report to Voice in the form of a vlog -the first of its kind.

With the positive results of the first project and the identification of a more specific need of the deaf youth community, we got a second empowerment grant. This is Our Story 2 focuses on improving employment opportunities for deaf young people by strengthening their capacity about their rights at work, encouraging the commitment of the government, and raising awareness on the issue of deaf people in relation to employment.

“This project brought us a variety of new experiences, especially the opportunity to collaborate with many parties. There is the KOPTUL (KOPI TULI – Deaf Coffee) whose story we adopted in the film “Rumah Siput”, the International Labor Organisation who helped to design the workshop curriculum on “Deaf Rights at Work” , the British Council through a joint art event “Festival Bebas Batas”, and with the Asia Foundation in carrying out a discussion entitled “Minggu Bersama Difabel” (Sunday with People with Disability) to talk about disability rights at work.”

Overall, This is Our Story allows us at Pamflet to engage in and further our collaborations with several institutions as they continue the campaign on disability rights. We also shared our significant learnings along the way:

“We have learnt that it is essential to produce vlogs in sign language during workshops, especially to translate the learning materials. This way, deaf young people who cannot be able to attend the workshops can access these materials via social media. We also realised that a subtle approach to deliver disability issues through film is an effective way to induce people’s constructive thoughts and to encourage discussion on disability rights. A lot of institutions, however, still need to be encouraged to take on initiatives related to disability issues. We observed that they are still reluctant and they find their ability to engage in this initiative to be lacking.”

This project is indeed a reflection of Voice’s goal to #LeaveNoOneBehind and further the rightsholder groups’ principle of #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs! To add to the project’s impact, we share the film “Rumah Siput” which is one of the nominees for the 2019 Viddsee Juree Indonesia and is also included in the Juree Audience Choice Award category!

You can watch the film with English subtitles below