‘Different is Normal’ awareness campaign launched

When two-year-old Emily dances, her mother Annabelle Xerri always dances with her – even though she cannot hear the music. 

“This is my normal. I don’t hear my daughter crying at night, yet I still wake up, as the baby monitor vibrating pad under the pillow alerts me. I don’t hear the doorbell, yet I still open the door if my daughter alerts me by pointing at the doorbell monitor. I don’t follow everything being said at university, yet I still attend lectures as I use the sign language interpreting service. I don’t hear the music my daughter is dancing to, yet I still dance with her. All this is part of my normal,” says Annabelle, who became deaf when she was six.

Annabelle and Emily form part of an awareness campaign launched today by the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability. Entitled ‘Different is Normal’, the campaign aims to increase the visibility of persons with a disability.  

The campaign kicked off with an exhibition of 12 activity shots, by photographer Darrin Zammit Lupi, showing people with various impairments doing what comes normal to them – from theatre and dance to running and swimming. 

Annabelle explains that after becoming deaf she first...