Finding Her Voice Between the Pauses

Imãn Ayisha Says Stuttering Never Silenced Her Silence has never meant that Imãn Ayisha (22) has nothing to say. Sometimes, it is simply space between her words. The writer, producer and emerging actor has lived with a stutter since she was about six years old. Yet the pauses in her speech have never stopped her from standing in front of an audience or doing what she is passionate about – storytelling and creativity. The two sides of her life complement each other. Stuttering may affect how she speaks, but has never limited her ability to think, create or tell stories. If anything, it has made her more conscious of the power of words and the importance of making people feel heard. “They allow me to engage with storytelling from a different perspective. I think they strengthen one another,” she says.

Writing, she says, is where stories begin and words are built, ideas are explored and characters are created, while producing teaches her how to bring the stories into reality. “Writing, especially, gives me a space where my ideas can exist exactly as I intend them to,” she says. What she appreciates the most is people not only listening to how she speaks but to what she has to say. “It shows me that having a voice isn’t about speaking perfectly. It’s about having something worth saying and being willing to say it,” Ayisha says. It makes her feel seen and less weird and different, she says. Language learning and literature have always been her passion and talent. Growing up in a multilingual environment, she learned to speak different languages. She is fluent in Afrikaans, German and Arabic. She also won a national German-speaking award in 2018. Ayisha is now studying language and linguistics at the Namibia University of Science and Technology, with ambitions of becoming a…