BIM Literature Project: Developing Deaf Culture and Poetry in Malaysia

For many years, despite the efforts of various Deaf associations, Malaysian Deaf culture was not actively promoted or nurtured. Slow progress in building pride and confidence in the Deaf community as a linguistic minority stemmed from limited resources, such as technical skills and knowledge about Deaf culture and BIM literature. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, opened new doors for the Deaf community to learn from Deaf experts internationally.

The BIM Literature Project addressed this gap by training 13 Deaf women in BIM poetry, led by Paula Clarke, a renowned NI-BSL poet from Northern Ireland, through a project titled Empowering Deaf Women in Malaysia through Sign Poetry under the British Council’s Connection Through Culture Grant 2021. This project ran from October 2021 to February 2022 to promote gender equality and empower Deaf women in Malaysia.

If you’d like to learn more about the Empowering Deaf Women in Malaysia through Sign Poetry project, which provided foundational skills and inspiration for this initiative, please read more here: Empowering Deaf Women in Malaysia through Sign Poetry.

The BIM poet trainees later shared their skills with participants in the BIM Literature Project, supported by mentors Jessica Mak and Ho Koon Wei from MyBIM. Out of 18 registrants, 13 participants completed the programme, which consisted of 31 sessions. These sessions covered various aspects of poetry signing, including orientation, poetry concepts, multimedia techniques, and guest lectures by experts like Elaine Foster and Dr. Sheena Baharudin.

To enhance their learning, three guest speakers from the UK—Nadia Nadarajah, a poet and actress; Zoe McWhinney, a VV poet; and Holly Lane, a diversity and inclusion manager—were invited to discuss Deaf women’s rights and poetry techniques. The participants worked in teams of two or three, fostering teamwork, critical thinking, and collaboration in poetry creation. The sessions helped them develop BIM poetry with themes related to the Deaf experience in Malaysia.

By the end of the project, the participants achieved the following:

1. Gained confidence in signing poetry through assignments.
2. Acquired foundational knowledge of poetry and expression.
3. Produced BIM poetry, allowing them to voice their Deaf identity.
4. Developed basic multimedia skills for BIM poetry video production.
5. Strengthened collaboration skills.

On 26 March 2022, three out of five teams showcased their poetry publicly at a special poetry night, marking the participants’ first public performance. Two other teams’ poems were scheduled for later and were released on 2 October 2022. All five teams’ work displayed the participants’ dedication and growth over five months. Their creativity and hard work in crafting BIM poetry was a proud achievement, introducing a beautiful, expressive element to BIM and inspiring future Deaf poets in Malaysia.

For your convenience, you may watch individual poetry below.