Pakistan’s first ever deaf food truck is on a mission to empower the hearing-impaired community

  • 12 Mar - 18 Mar, 2022
  • Mag The Weekly
  • Mag Files

The bright yellow truck with a logo of a pair of spectacles perched over a luxurious moustache looks like many other food trucks that attract hungry students at a college in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. But when giving their order, the students begin signalling with their hands, indicating this is not an ordinary food truck. The Abey Khao food truck is Pakistan's first mobile restaurant staffed entirely by deaf workers, providing an economic opportunity for them. The food truck is the brainchild of hearing impaired family, with both parents and their two sons who are either totally or partially deaf. However, daughter Ayesha Raza can hear and she came up with the idea for Abey Khao to give opportunities for her brothers. "The majority of the deaf youth is unemployed in Pakistan, and they face issues like language barriers, inequality and discrimination," she said. "At Abey Khao, customers embrace deaf culture and place their orders in sign language." With diagrams showing how to say simple phrases in sign language, the food truck is not only providing employment but helping to bridge communication gaps between deaf people and the hearing community, she said. Parked on the campus of Millennium Universal College, students gather for sizzling meat sandwiches and French fries, signalling their orders with their hands.

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