By Mohammad Saifullah
GOMBAK, 8 November 2018: A charity concert held last night at Main Auditorium at IIUM campus here brought along the Rhythm of Hope as it drew amazing response from the audiences.
Featuring popular local artistes such as Fiena, Lah Ahmad, Caliph Buskers and InTeam, the concert was organised by final year Internship class (journalism and electronic media), who called themselves COMMBest, to spread disability awareness not only among campus community but also to the society outside.
Assistant Prof. Dr. Aida Mokhtar from Communication Department said, “It was really enjoyable and entertaining. The best thing is the objective of this event is to create awareness for special need people.”
“Being a mother of an autistic son, I feel very close to this event. We hope this will be organised every year, perhaps on a bigger scale,” she added.
Meanwhile, Programme manager, Taufiq bin Mat Nasir told IIUMToday: “We believe that music is a powerful tool to inspire people in an interactive way. That’s why we choose to organise this charity night to deliver a message of hope to the public.”
“I could feel that the audience enjoyed the concert and we hope they will deliver our message to the others.”
The poem recited by Fiena impressed the feelings of the audience with a nice background music as it described about Life (Kehidupan).
Marsha Adiba, an audience last night, shared: “The performance of Fiena touched my heart because of her poem about life. Caliph Busker’s performance was also extraordinary because all the artists in the team are special needs people.”
Another audience, Muhammad Faiz Abdul Rahim shared his feelings too. “It was a nice experience as the performance really did have the audience involved from the start until the end of the concert.”
“It should be done frequently because I believe most people are still not fully aware of the issues surrounding people with special needs. It’s probably due to their ignorance as one always says that ignorance is bliss, but, in this case, it is not. We need to have that inclusive environment where we can fully embrace all human beings to live with,” Faiz stressed.
The event was held in collaboration with the International Disabled Grand Awareness Campaign (IDGAC). ***