The beauty of the physically-challenged TUOI TRE   Almost 70 physically-challenged girls are given the golden opportunity to show off their beauty and strengths and boost their confidence and faith in a special beauty pageant, which is a tremendous effort by a team of highly committed, disabled initiators and organizers. Le Thi Thuy Doan, a congenitally hearing-and-speech-impaired girl from Hanoi, astounded people in her neighborhood when they learned that she was gearing up for the upcoming final of a beauty pageant for the physically-challenged called “The Crescent’s Grace.” She gracefully posed for shots when the three-member jury visited her at her home for photos and an interview in preparation for the final. Embracing the world despite imperfections When Doan was 14 months old, her family was stunned when they were told by doctors that she had congenital hearing and speech impairments. Doan grew up in her own world of silence. Without speech, as a little kid she would cry to let her parents know that she wasn’t feeling well and struggled to make herself understood with mere facial expressions and hand gestures. Nguyen Thi Thuyen, Doan’s mother, emotionally recalled Doan’s recurrent, heartrending question in writing as a child: “Why can my sisters hear and speak while I can’t, though we are all born to the same parents?” Her father took her to clubs for the hearing and speech impaired and enrolled her in sign language classes. Unfazed by her disability, the strong-willed girl learned to be a tailor and taught herself computer skills. She registered for the pageant as soon as she found out about it. Just like Doan, all other contestants from across the country are physically-impaired. Yet their confinement to wheelchairs, missing or atrophied limbs or other impairments all seem to be blurred by their radiantly beaming smiles, sanguinity and yearning to make themselves useful to society. In her self-introduction to the pageant organizers, Nguyen Thi Thu Huyen, 27, from northern Ha Tinh Province, wrote that a debilitating fever struck her when she was one year old, leaving her paralyzed in both legs and confined to a wheelchair perhaps for the rest of her life. “I grew up suffering from an isolating inferiority complex as a result of people’s discrimination against me. Many even asked what the point of my hard schoolwork was, considering my disability,” Huyen wrote. The iron-willed girl, whose mother piggybacked her from the time she was in elementary school up to college, undauntedly reminded herself that she had to make considerably more effort than her able-bodied peers. She graduated from college in informatics with excellent results. “I’ve always learned to love, triumph over myself and maintain faith. I took part in this contest to help promote a more positive attitude towards the physically-challenged community, who are in dire need of support and encouragement from society,” Huyen noted, adding that if she makes it to the top 10, she will showcase her singing and piano skills. Dedicated faith boosters Many of the contestants were surprised to learn that almost all of the pageant’s organizers and jury members are also physically impaired. Photographer Bui Dang Thanh has only one arm while Trinh Cong Thanh has had one of his legs amputated due to bone cancer. Unlike in other beauty pageants, these organizers and jury members voluntarily make the trip to interview the 15 finalists at their homes, which are scattered across the country, to spare the girls the trouble and expense of traveling. Receiving no pay at all, the team just wishes to do something to hearten the disabled and boost their faith. They’ve encountered considerable difficulty, as the contest has no funding, sponsorship or professional organizers. “It’s quite easy to ask for sponsorship to buy some wheelchairs for people with mobility impairments, but sponsors tend to be hesitant when it comes to funding for a beauty contest or a playground for the physically-challenged,” said Trinh Cong Thanh, the project initiator. Cong Thanh and his friends and colleagues from some other community development centers are thus on their own. The final is set to take place on April 14 as it’s the only night that the team can get free access to a convention hall in the Melia Hotel. Thanh managed to find a sign language interpreter for Doan and volunteers to assist the contestants at the final. He and other organizers also took the stage layout and other issues into careful consideration to make sure the girls won’t trip or fall onstage. “What I find most challenging, however, is how to help the girls overcome their inferiority complex and enhance their confidence in showcasing their abilities,” Thanh shared.  As preparations are getting underway, the girls really can’t wait for their big night. Thuyen, Doan’s mother, said she has never seen her daughter smile so much. Though unable to hear, with her friends’ help Doan is working hard on a dance to a background song.