Words by Imala

In our society there are so many issues that are considered as the elephant in the room. To those who are unfamiliar with this saying, let me try to explain it a little bit more. It is about avoiding controversial issues that everyone knows and yet no one is willing to discuss because it makes some of them uncomfortable and embarrassed. Because it brings shame to the family and it tarnishes their so-called images presented to the society. Hence, it is swept under the rug never to be spoken of again and it could be said that things like these contribute as a cause of mental health issues amongst the younger generation today.

So, imagine our surprise when we came across an Instagram page that was calling out all the hush hushed issues. It was so refreshing to see that someone was finally speaking and calling out the issues that our society runs from. As we were scrolling the page, we noticed that the creator has chosen a unique way to express these issues. It was serious with a hint of humor and with a mix of both Dhivehi and English. Now how interesting is that? Pretty fascinating huh? As most of you have guessed for this week’s special feature its none other than Dhi.nglish.

Therefore, we set down with the page creator, 27-year-old Afnan Ibrahim also known as Naakko, to have a conversation on how it all began. “I studied Bachelor of Science in Sociology at University of London in Sri Lanka. After completing my studies, I moved back to Male’ and started working in the NGO sectors, with different organizations in various projects focusing on causes like democracy, human rights, youth issues-based projects. Right now, I am working as a freelance consultant in communitybased projects.” She started after taking a deep breath. “Since I was young, I wanted to be a lawyer but when I was in grade 9, I wanted to do psychology and I spoke with some psychology majors when one of them recommended sociology that has a broad spectrum which I found very interesting.” Naakko continued on how she started.

First, we inquired on what her message is through her media platform and she replied that, “The main message is to speak about the things that are not spoken of. Things that need to be said at this point. Everyone knows we talk with friends in secret about the things we hesitate to talk about in public. I started Dhi.nglish with that purpose and people really reaffirmed that they needed this.”

As for her knack at instant content creation Naakko credited her trainings at various NGO’s. “When we are assigned projects, we don’t really know what project we are signing up for. You may have to do anything. So, you adapt, you learn how to do things which I would say is one of the best parts about working in NGO’s. My friends get really surprised because of how quickly I write stuff but in reality, it has been in forced from a long time and that is why it doesn’t take much time to write the contents.”

“I actually get a lot of data from the questions I ask on my story which has broadened my knowledge on issues I have not worked on before. Those are all testaments when I ask about issues like street harassments or boy’s expectations in society. The things people share are actually hard to get if you are trying to find information through an official outlet because people are not willing to open up to them about these stuffs. So, I can say that I was pleasantly surprised to see that people are more than willing to share these experiences with Dhi.nglish.” Naakko continued with a big smile as she firmly believes that the continuous support from her followers is her reason for carrying on with her contents.

We then proceeded to ask the one question we just had to ask about her songs that is so accurate, on point and on top of it all so entertaining. The minute we asked about it she burst out laughing. ” My best friend and I, jam every now and then, and she said that the song “Manike Mage Hithe” suited my voice and to learn the lyrics so we can play it together; which I then started to practice and sing. During the whole process I was thinking how similar the Sinhalese words in the lyrics were to Dhivehi words, and they were popping into my mind to replace the words in the original song. And so, just for fun I recorded and released it with my own version on the same day and it was somehow on fire.” Naakko explained with a huge grin on her face.

In regards to the feedback, she had to say that, ” I actually received a lot of positive feedback until recently I honestly didn’t even notice the negative side because it was so little. Like I have done a lot of social media projects and nothing worked like this. The little hate I got didn’t mean much until Tiktok I guess. Tiktok scared me a little. I started Dhi.nglsih on December 2020 and joined Tiktok in April 2021 and I managed to get 8K followers in less than 2 months. But I got banned soon enough, and before the ban, I got quite brutal hate on Tiktok for talking about some of the topics.” It comes as no surprise since there are people who just cannot accept the fact that there are issues that have to be acknowledged. Hence, we came to terms with the fact that there is just no pleasing everyone in whatever anyone does.

When we asked Naakko what’s in the future for Dhi.nglish, she replied, “I remember this question being asked at my first interview and I was like ‘I don’t really know but I will try to post something every day.’ I have actually not planned anything. You don’t expect a campaign to be successful, especially if you have worked on 100s of them without expectations. You just do it and hope something comes out of it and when it does, you might not always have planned which direction to take it next because it happens so organically. So currently I am just focusing on the talk show which has a really cool concept which I hope is fun and informative to everyone!”

Throughout the whole conversation we learnt a lot of new information in regards to different topics and that Naakko is a well-informed individual who is willing to help out and bring awareness to our society. Afterall, through Dhi.nglish platform Naakko is breaking a lot of norms of what we can and cannot say. Hats off to Naakko and wishing her all the very best in this difficult task.