قف بقوة وتوحد الجميع في المجتمعات
qaf biquat watawahad aljamie fi almujtamaeat

“Stand strong and unite everyone in the communities.”

On Friday 15th March 2019, a shocking tragedy came through breaking news via social media such as Facebook, Twitters, Internet, TVNZ (Television New Zeland Broadcasting). I received several texts from hearing friends of Christchurch, New Zealand around 230pm because they know I have someone who is Deaf refugee woman from Somalia living in Hamilton and a connection to the Refugee Settlement Centre In Hamilton.

  This is the person who she is a Deaf Somalian lady living in Hamilton. Her name will be not listed in this blog – acknowledge to the Muslim Communities around the world for not putting her name out in public.

She came to New Zealand with a small group of her family except for her mother and a half brother and sister back in Kenya and Ethiopia back in 2005. She and a small group came to Christchurch, and they learn to meet with the Muslim community as new friends – Brothers and Sisters. Then the violent earthquake struck twice in Christchurch – in September 2010 and in February 2011. This Deaf Somalian lady was terrified of the tremblers and daily aftershock movements, and she wanted to move out of Christchurch as soon as possible. The Settlement Centre rang the several other Settlement Centre around the North Island. The only one place was better for her, is Hamilton and the staff worked hard to find someone to support this Deaf Somalian lady from  Deaf Aotearoa and CCS Waikato. No one has the skill to work with her until one staff of Waikato Settlement Centre emailed me. I work under the CCS organisation and a member of the Deaf Aotearoa and the Deaf community. It has been 8 years since she moved here.

Yesterday, after receiving the texts I managed to video conferencing to this Deaf Somalian lady several times to attempts the connection through Viber. The Viber network does not work well for my mobile even my Ipad, but this person loves using Viber. I signed to her by giving her clear pictures of what happening, some of her friends and families in Christchurch were in shock, but they are okay and traumatise.  First of all, she thought the shooting happened in overseas, and I explained to her through NZSL (New Zealand Sign Language) saying the shooting in Christchurch. She understood me well and told me that her sister in law is in the house with her.

With the Deaf community, I tried to send several messages to one Facebook page, BUT I was waiting for the admin to approve my message before 315pm. It is difficult for Deaf people in their community because they can not hear the radio. First of all, when the Deaf people around in NZ (New Zealand) learnt the drama after 330pm and they request to have an interpreter throughout the breaking news on TV. There was no interpreter there – a huge disappointment to them. In Facebook, some of the interpreters learnt about the story and they dropped their works even at their home. They turned the TV on, open their computer, their mobile even a laptop and starting doing interpreting for the Deaf community around NZ.  YES, the government staff tried to arrange an interpreter for the breaking news, but there was an interpreter showed up on TV News late in the evening new as a piece of update news.

This morning, I received several more emails and texts from the people I know in CHCH (Christchurch). The messages read out – confusing, shocking, stand strong, don’t be angry, keep in touch with your families and friends etc.  I turned on the TV, and there was more news about the drama in CHCH. This time there were two interpreters were standing by the Police and the CHCH Mayor. It helped the Deaf people to understand more than reading captioning or read in the newspapers because of their visual communication.

What more I can say?? There is nothing more to say, just pray and think of them in my heart.