Meet the Zwakala Judges – Part 1

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.