DAI Organises First “Deaf Festival” in Delhi
“Deaf Awareness and Impact” abbreviated for the DAI organised a “Deaf Festival” in New Delhi. This was the first festival completely organised and represented by Deaf community. More than 3,000 people
The DAI was founded in May 2017. It was called ‘Deaf Awareness India’, an NGO to create awareness among Deaf youths about Deaf-related issues, Deaf rights and available resources and lead them to implement actions to support, to protect our Deaf community in India. It has so far done a lot of awareness and action programmes locally for young Deaf people.
Very recently, on 28 February 2019, DAI was finally registered as a Trust with a name ‘Deaf Awareness and Impact’. Mr. Balbir said that the use of word ‘India’ was not permissible as per Government rules. He struggled to convince the officials at the registration office to allow the use of word ‘India’ because DAI was already popular among deaf youths.
He then settled on much more stronger word ‘Impact’ in place of ‘India’ as the aims and objectives of DAI was focused on creating maximum awareness and bringing positive impact for the young deaf community.
Mr. Balbir Singh wants to inform all deaf organizations that DAI encourages other Deaf associations to organize ‘Deaf Festival’ in their locality. This will help Deaf people enjoy and give them a “Sense of Belonging”.
He also said that, Deaf people should avoid politicizing the use of phrase ‘Deaf Festival’ because it is a generic theme.
Any Deaf organization can use the phrase to celebrate deaf-led events. ‘Deaf Festival’ is not a ‘property’ belonging to any particular Deaf organization. ‘Deaf Festival’ belongs to all deaf people and it is same as celebrating the other themes such as ‘World Deaf Day’ (WDD) or ‘International Day of the Deaf’ (IDD) or ‘International Week of the Deaf’ (IWD).
If Deaf organizations want help on how to plan, organize ‘Deaf Festival’ like DAI, they can contact Mr. Balbir Singh.
