When disability is not an impairment
Manama : When Differently-abled activist Mahmood AlHaiki and his friend Mahmood Alarabi decided to perform a flash mob at City Center Bahrain to raise awareness about issues faced by the disabled community, they never expected such an overwhelming response from the people.
The very moment the video of the flash mob was uploaded to YouTube, it soared quickly in becoming the next big thing on social media.
The activists have been receiving immense support in the past three weeks from the public following their flash mob event.
“People were so moved by our flash mob, everyone at the mall cheered and some even cried. We are honoured by their support and well wishes” AlHaiki told DT News.
Alarabi said that the video has remained as the top trending videos from Bahrain in YouTube for the past 6 days.
“The support has been incredible. It is evident from how popular we have become in social media. Our video has become the number one trending in YouTube in just a day. Companies spend a huge amount of money to market a video, but our video became trending without any expense,” he commented.
Eventhough Alarabi does not suffer from any disability he is equally determined to make a difference for the disabled community.
“Our friends and family supported us even before we organised the event. We were a bit nervous about the flash mob but the support from the onlookers were better than anything we could have hoped for,” he said.
Al Haiki said that the flash mob was to raise awareness about how the society has a different attitude towards disabled people.
“People tend to look at disabled people differently, but we do not want that. We want to be better integrated and better understood.”
Speaking about his own struggles with this issue he said, “I have been discouraged many times by others who believed that I was not capable of living a normal life. I used to be passionate about drawing, but people kept discouraging me. They believed that I was hurting myself by practicing art,” he said. The duo are part of a Thaat production team which campaigns for various social causes.
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