coming-soon

Competition Time at DTV

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For 5 weeks, starting on Saturday, 18 October 2014, DTV will be running a fantastic competition, with a great prize to be won each week.

The contest is easy, without any tricky questions to answer, but to enter you will have to watch each episode of DTV very carefully! Full details for the competition will be revealed at the start of each episode (from 18 October to 15 November 2014), and you can submit your entry via email, SMS, or the DTV website.

Details will also be published here after the episode has broadcast, but remember, to enter you will have to carefully watch the episode from start to finish.

The name of each week’s winner will be published on our Facebook Page, and on our website, once they have been contacted.

Let Us Be One!

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In the recent Heritage Day episode of DTV (broadcast on Saturday, 27 September 2014), the DTV team acted out a special poem in South African Sign Language.

The poem was written by our own SASL Interpreter, Kendall Midgley, and the themes are at once broad, but connected, touching on the struggles of all South Africans in an oppressive past, along with the struggles of the Deaf within that larger conflict. The most important theme, of course, is unity, reminding us that despite our differences, our cultural diversity, we should always work together.

Let Us Be One!

In our dark, silent world, we fear there is no light.
Our hands are tied, we cannot express our beautiful language.
Our loneliness is real, our inequality is rife.

Our country cries out with us,
fists raised in the air, feet stomping the ground.
South Africa cries out to the heavens.

We cannot use our hands to tell you how we feel,
you want us to use our tongues
in a way that we do not know.

Respect and understand us.

Oh, our beloved South Africa,
our angry, restless, wounded South Africa.
Join us in the fight to be free,
let us fight for our beautiful hands.

We come into the world as equals,
so why do we not live our lives as such?

Who are we?
We are deaf. We are human.
We are fighting for our language that you don’t know.

Take my hand, we’re halfway there.

My brother, my sister,
though we speak a different language,
we both have the drumbeat of Africa in our veins.

Do not punish me for my language,
the way you did before.
Hold my hand,
together we can paint pictures in the air.

Oh, our beloved South Africa,
as you fought, we were fighting beside you.
Our beautiful, rich, unique South Africa,
our culture is alive.

Let us be one!

World Smile Day

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It was in 1963 that Harvey Ball first created his famous smiley face, an image that is instantly recognisable, and still serves as a symbol of good will and cheer.

The image has been replicated in many ways over the years, including the unescapable emoji used in various chat apps, resulting in Harvey becoming concerned by the over-commercialisation of the symbol. The risk was that the original meaning would become lost, and to prevent this Harvey came up with the idea of World Smile Day (now a registered trademark). In the late 1990s, Harvey decided that the first Friday of October should be World Smile Day, and the very first World Smile Day took place in 1999.

The smiley face transcends politics, borders and religion, and on World Smile Day we are reminded that we too should ignore differences, and show a little kindness. On World Smile Day we are all encouraged to

“Do an act of kindness. Help one person smile”

Make that your goal on this beautiful Friday, but why stop at one? Do multiple acts of kindness, and make everyone you meet today smile. And why not take a selfie showing your smile (or a cartoon smile), post it to our Facebook Page (or email it to ), and tell us about the people you made smile today!

Image Source: Dr Heckle

Meet the Zwakala Judges – Part 2

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Yesterday we introduced you to the judges responsible for the South African entrants in Zwakala, and today we introduce you to the judges responsible for the gala event.

These judges will be looking at, and assessing, the very best that each of the 11 SADC nations have chosen during their own finals, before selecting the final winners in each category.

Alison Swannack

 

Alison Swannack is an enthusiastic educator, activist and passionate advocate for the Deaf, with 23 years’ proven experience in the areas of teaching and curriculum development. She is currently employed as SASL Course Coordinator, curriculum developer and facilitator at Wits Language School. She is also currently involved in writing the SASL curriculum (CAPS) for the National Department of Basic Education. She believes strongly in delivering educational and management programs that assist students and the public in achieving academic goals whilst enhancing community awareness on issues relevant to the Deaf community.

Alison is currently pursuing studies in SASL/ Translation and Interpreting at Wits . She was awarded an Honourable Mention for her paper on `The fake SASL interpreter – A curse or a gift’ at the joint annual conference of the LSSA/SAALA and SAALT in June 2014. Her areas of interest include bilingualism, identity, language education, and the performing arts.

Bibi Ayesha Ramjugernath

 

Ayesha Ramjugernath is no stranger to television as she has previously presented for Deaf TV on SABC. Intersexions, however, is her first acting role on television and she is excited about her future prospects. The ambitious 28-year old was born into a deaf family and her mother tongue is South African Sign Language. She says being born deaf helped her develop very quickly, and Ayesha had already started school by the age of three. Her mother and older sister are also deaf.

Ayesha Ramjugernath firmly believes in the empowerment of Deaf individuals and aims at bridging the communication divide between a linguistic and cultural minority group and the general society who often takes communication for granted.

Her disability has never taken away from her sterling achievements or prevented her from chasing her dreams. She matriculated with exemption from Parktown Girls and is a South African Sign Language Honours lecturer at Wits University Tutor and Subject Matter Master at eDeaf, a qualified assessor and moderator. She is currently studying towards a BA Linguistics, majoring in English.

The multi talented Ayesha has always had a love for the performing arts and did speech and drama as a subject in high school.

Ismael Mansoor

 

Ismael Mansoor was born a hearing child, but lost his hearing at the age of two and a half. He attended Fulton School for the Deaf and completed his Matric in 2007. After matriculating Ismael didn’t know what to do, and he felt lost, but between 2011 and 2012 he rediscovered his creativity – and a love of writing grew. Since then he has written various forms of text such as affirmations, poetry and some stories, and feels that writing has become his compass in life, and his passion. He hopes to motivate and encourage others through his writing.

In his writing Ismael wants to motivate people to look at the positive side of life more than the negative, and he hopes that it will give people a different perspective and bridge the natural gap between reality and imagination. Through his writing he wants to tell people about who he is and how he sees the world.

Meet the Zwakala Judges – Part 1

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Each year the Zwakala team selects a panel of judges who collectively have a sound understanding of the performing arts, the entertainment industry, Deaf culture and Deaf history.

In the first of a two-part post, we introduce you to the judges responsible for the South African entrants.

Modiegi Moime

 

Modiegi Susan Moime was born in South West township (Soweto), Johannesburg South Africa. She has a hearing sister, and two Deaf sisters, and only became Deaf herself at the age of 3. Her parents found it difficult to accept her deafness, so she continued attending a hearing crèche, and saw several doctors over the years regarding her hearing loss.

Later she attended the Dominican School for the Deaf in Hammanskraal outside Pretoria, and completed her matric year at St Vincent School for the Deaf. Modiegi’s successes in life, including several years spent as an actor and presenter in various drama and magazine programmes on SABC Television, led to her parents finally accepting her fully.

For the past 13-years Modiegi has worked for Sign Language Education and Development (SLED) as a SASL facilitator and assessor, with a focus on storytelling and poetry. Despite her many qualifications, Modiegi sees herself as a lifelong learner and is currently in her third year as a part-time student at Wits, with the intention of starting her honors in 2016.

Jan Engelen

 

Jan Engelen started his career as actor, director and company manager in the Theatre. He followed a course in television production in Belgium and joined the SABC as a junior director in the drama department – that is long ago. His passion became youth programmes.

Jan wrote scripts and directed numerous youth programmes for the SABC, also youth drama series like Trompie en die Boksombende, Roep van die visarend en Seeduiker. As a freelance director, actor and scriptwriter since 1984 Jan worked closely with many production companies and has created hundreds of children’s and youth programmes; for some of them he received awards and nominations as best director or best programme.

Jan became part of the early days of Deaf television when he directed programmes for Talking Hands and DTV. He directed the deaf soapie series @Jozi and Eve’s Cradle. Jan has had a close relationship with DTV for many years, still has today and can’t wait to get involved. Recently Jan played the part of Zoutevis in the kykNet drama series Moeggeploeg. He completed the youth magazine programme series Hug A TreeTv for SABC, and is presently writing and directing a follow up series of the popular youth magazine programme series How Do They Do That!!!? for SABC.

Jan is co-director and co-owner, with Vicky Kente, of the production company HADIDA Television. Apart from corporate work the company is presently working on the youth drama series danZ! for kykNet.

Atiyah Asmal

 

Growing up as a Deaf child in a Deaf family, South African Sign Language is Atiyah Asmal’s mother tongue.

Atiyah currently works as a facilitator at eDeaf, the acronym for Employ and Empower Deaf, teaching Communication in English Level 2. Atiyah is a qualified assessor and moderator, and also teaches SASL to Deaf and Hearing learners. Atiyah enjoys teaching SASL and English as subjects and believes that the joy of learning a new language can be instilled in the groups that she teaches. Her unique understanding of the Deaf community have helped her become an exceptional and empathetic facilitator.

Atiyah previously worked at SLED, conducting workshops around the country to help teachers of the Deaf, and Deaf learners, understand SASL grammar and literature. Since 1996 Atiyah has also worked as a presenter for television programmes for the Deaf , and she has a passion to see young children development their creative, unusual language to become expressive through the use of poetry or SASL storytelling.

In her free time Atiyah spends time with her loved ones, reading books, enjoying the outdoors, and traveling around the world to explore new places and food.

Let the Deaf Be Heard

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Image Source: See, Hear, Speak No Deaf painting by Nancy Rourke

An official Zwakala song was launched at the 2011 gala event. The song was first performed at this event by Mango Groove, and signed by Candice Morgan. The song incorporates the objectives of Zwakala, but can also be seen as a struggle song for the Deaf as it acknowledges the struggle following the 1880 Milan Congress, while giving hope for the future.

Zwakala: Let the Deaf Be Heard (Lyrics)

For too long
Our hands have been silent
For too long
Our hands have been tied
For too long we have stood in the shadows
For too long we wordlessly cried.

Zwakala!
Let us unite
Zwakala!
Together we will fight
Zwakala!
Let the Deaf be heard
Shout out the word.

Let the Deaf Be Heard.

For too long
Our language was hidden
For too long
Our language was dumb
For too long it was spoken in secret
But no longer, for now our time has come.

Zwakala!
Let us unite
Zwakala!
Together we will fight
Zwakala!
Let the Deaf be heard
Zwakala shout out the word.

Let the Deaf be Heard.

The Story of Zwakala – A DTV Project

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The Origins of Zwakala

For years the Deaf have felt excluded from mainstream competitions in the performing arts, and in 2006 DTV took on the challenge of changing this. Zwakala (a Zulu term for “be heard”) was born out of a need to recognise creative talent within the Deaf community, and it follows DTV’s infamous creed of by the Deaf, for the Deaf.

The DTV team were fortunate enough to receive the blessing, and patronage, of the late MaSisulu, and in 2007 the first Zwakala contest took place. The theme of the first contest was “A Birthday Card for Madiba”. 95 learners entered the contest, with 6 learners making it through to the finals. Since then the DTV team have worked tirelessly to continue growing the event, and generating additional exposure of the talent that participates. The strong support of the SABC, the Department of Arts & Culture, the Department of Education, DeafSA, PanSALB and the Deaf community, have helped turn Zwakala into a recognisable, strong and sustainable brand.

Zwakala has gone from reaching all the schools for the deaf in South Africa, to crossing borders and now also involving learners from the SADC region. In 2013 this saw the inclusion of schools and learners from:

  • Botswana,
  • Lesotho,
  • Mozambique,
  • Namibia,
  • Swaziland, and
  • Zimbabwe.

From 2014, the following countries are also included:

  • Tanzania,
  • Zambia,
  • Seychelles, and
  • Malawi

This means this years Zwakala event will be the biggest so far. South Africa alone drew 105 entries, and the gala event in early 2015 will showcase the talents of 88 finalists from 11 countries.

The Objectives of Zwakala

The objectives of Zwakala focus specifically on the Deaf, Deaf culture and regional culture, creativity and development. They include:

  • Providing a platform for Deaf learners to perform poetry, stories and drama in Sign Language.
  • Promoting the use of South African Sign Language, and the Sign Language of other countries in the region.
  • Providing Deaf learners with an opportunity to explore the arts in a creative and interactive manner.
  • Helping Deaf learners to develop their expressive abilities.
  • Helping learners to gain confidence in themselves, and their signing abilities.
  • Giving Deaf learners in all the South African provinces, and now the SADC region, an opportunity to come together, and to learn from one another.
  • Allowing children to fully explore Deaf culture in terms of the role that poetry, story-telling and drama play in the richness of Deaf culture.
  • Fostering Deaf pride by organising a contest on par with hearing contests of a similar nature.

In 2011, a song was composed for the event, and first performed by Mango Groove, and signed by Candice Morgan. The song incorporates elements of the struggle that followed the controversial Milan congress in 1880, while providing hope for the future. The song also incorporates the main objectives of Zwakala.

Zwakala Accolades

The success of Zwakala is evident not only in how the event has grown over the years, but also in its other achievements. From PanSALB acknowledging the huge contribution of Zwakala by awarding the team the PanSALB Multilingual Award for the promotion and development of South African Sign Language on Television, to the winner of the 2008 event, Darren Rajbal, going on to win SA’s Got Talent.

Zwakala’s new patron, Minister Lindiwe Sisulu recently shared her thoughts on Zwakala:

Since taking over as patron of Zwakala a wondrous world has opened up for me; a wondrous world where young, very talented, very courageous, very intelligent young people showed me the limits of possibilities are only defined by ourselves. I was truly touched and glad I was chosen as patron. The young people proved that each one of us has the will to beat whatever odds are perceived or whatever odds we encounter! The possibilities are limitless.

The Zwakala Contest

The contest is divided into four categories:

  • Category A – Individual Story-Telling (ages 5-10)
  • Category B – Individual Musical Category (all ages)
  • Category C – Individual Talent (all ages)
  • Category D – Group Drama (all ages)

Each country is responsible for judging their own entrants, and selecting finalists, and all finalists are later flown to Johannesburg for a gala event where the overall winners in each category are selected. All finalists receive a complimentary gift bag, while the winners in each category receive prizes totaling more than R200,000.

Regional judging in the SADC countries has not been completed yet, but the provincial judging in South Africa took place during May 2014. Invitations to participate where sent out to various schools for the deaf throughout South Africa, broken down as follows:

  • Gauteng – 7 Schools Invited
  • KwaZulu-Natal – 8 Schools Invited
  • Limpopo – 5 Schools Invited
  • Mpumalanga – 2 Schools Invited
  • North-West – 2 Schools Invited
  • Western Cape – 7 Schools Invited
  • Eastern Cape – 3 Schools Invited
  • Free State – 2 Schools Invited
  • Northern Cape – 1 School Invited

The judging panel included:

  • Modiegi Moime
  • Jan Engelen
  • Atiyah Asmal

and on the 28th of July 2014 they announced the following finalists from South Africa:

  • Category A – Robaida Mohammed (Durban School for the Impaired)
  • Category B – Isaa Mabuza (VN Naik School for the Deaf & Hard of Hearing)
  • Category C – Lebephe Mahlatsi – Setotolwane Elsen Secondary School
  • Category D – Bartimea School for the Deaf & Blind

They, along with the finalists from the SADC countries, will participate in the Zwakala finals from 24-26 February 2015, with the gala event taking place on 27 February 2015. The judges for the finals are:

  • Dr John Kani
  • Alison Swannack
  • Bibi Ramjurgenath
  • Ismael Mansoor

Further details, including profiles on all the judges, will be published here over the coming weeks.

The WatchMeTalk App

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Hackathons have become increasingly popular ways of exploring new possibilities in the programming and development fields. The phrase itself is a portmanteau of the words hack and marathon, with hack relating to experimenting with computer hardware and software in a fun and enjoyable way, not the more sinister definition relating to cybercrime. Hackathons typically last 2-7 days, with participants working almost non-stop to create something new.

It was at the 36-hour Hacktech Hackathon in January 2014 that Alejandro Rioja, Ritvik Upadhyaya, Christian Guerin and Jordan Vega developed the WatchMeTalk app.

The WatchMeTalk app uses Google’s Speech-to-text API, in conjunction with Google Glass, to convert audio (spoken text) into text, in real time. Although the app has many possible benefits throughout society, the team saw it as having the greatest benefit to the deaf and hard of hearing – when paired with Google Glass, the app allows you to look directly at someone as they speak to you, and immediately have their speech converted to text that you can read without looking away. Other ways the app could be used include:

  • When watching a film or TV show that does not have subtitles or closed-captioning.
  • At gatherings, meetings and parties, allowing you to more easily participate in discussions, or understand what is being discussed without the need for interpreting.

Although the WatchMeTalk app was initially designed to work with Google Glass, the team are currently developing standalone versions for Android smartphones and iPhones, with a launch projected for September 2014. The app is currently undergoing beta testing, but it already received extensive coverage at the 52nd Biennial National Association of the Deaf Conference earlier this year.

More details can be found on the app’s website.

Google Glass is a form of wearable technology that is at once quite controversial, and of great benefit within certain situations. It is currently only available to developers and US consumers, at $1,500 per pair. Google has given no indication of when Google Glass will be available to international consumers.