Zara Wallace shares her #JPSpeakOut journey

We had the privilege to sit down with Zara over the summer, Grand Finalist of the Jack Petchey’s Speak Out Challenge 2024-25. She shared her experience taking part in the Speak Out Challenge from the workshop day through to the Grand Final and opened up about her topic of choice and its importance.

Q. What was the title and topic of your speech?

A. The title of my speech was “Being Society’s Light”, symbolically standing for BSL, (referring to British Sign Language), which is what my speech was about, talking about sign language and my experiences being a CODA (child of deaf adults).

I wanted to talk about what my parents go through, what I go through, I feel like people should know about it because I never see any media representation about it. So I thought it’d be cool if I was one of the first people to talk about it and really spread awareness.

Q. So how did you decide to speak about that?

A. The trainer in the workshop was very encouraging: “unless you can make it really convincing, the audience can see when you’re passionate or when you’re not passionate about something”. So I thought about things that I’m really interested in that I could just talk for hours about. And this topic is a big part of who I am. I knew my parents would probably appreciate it. I’ve always seen myself as someone who likes to spread information, that person who likes to share and talk about things, so I thought of speaking about it and see where it’d get me.
And it got me far 🙂

Q. What else did you learn in the workshop that day?

A. I just remember feeling most of all the feeling of teamwork, and it’s surprising because we’re kind of competing against each other. Everyone came together because they knew after lunchtime we would present our speeches as improv almost, so everyone was helping each other out, absolute teamwork everywhere.
And also when we were hearing the speeches, everyone was cheering for each other.

We didn’t try to make each other feel nervous or embarrassed.

Q. Did you learn anything that you didn’t know about your friends that day in the workshop?

A. I remember there was a girl in my class, she has an autistic brother, and talked about her experiences through that. It was interesting to hear because we always see through the disabilities’ point of view. It reminded me of me, having this outsider point of view, trying to deal with a different life, not as a burden, but trying to see how the world works when someone like that is in your family.

And also people shared other experiences with their family relatives, knife crime for example, which is really upsetting. Wouldn’t think that your own classmates have been through that experience.

But that day I felt like everyone was comfortable enough to share and knew whatever was said in that room would stay in the room. That’s why I was comfortable enough to talk about my parents because I never really talked about it before.

I felt a great feeling of togetherness at that moment.

Q. What other examples or experiences you’d like to share from your journey?

I think the Regional Finals was a really cool moment for me.

I arrived late, didn’t know I was performing even, I remember my dad turning around looking at me before the actual announcement of the winner.

I would say “there’s no way” and I was shaking.
I was like, there’s no way that just happened. My friends, my family, the closest people were there.
I loved just being there. It was such a nice moment, like a celebration. Everyone was so nice to me.

People came up to me after my speech. I just felt like I’ve been heard for the first time.

It was such like a special moment to me. And the whole thing, not just because I won, but because of how much it meant personally.

Q. What are the three words to summarise the feeling of being on the Grand Final stage?

A. Overwhelmed, Zen (or calm), Community.

The sense of community came because we were all just helping each other backstage. And it was so nice to see like all my friends, I met new people.
They were all so sweet. I don’t know what I was expecting, but my dream has always been to perform on like a stage like that, something that always, always I love, theatre and performance.
So just being there in the Matilda stage, it was like a dream come true, actual dream come true.

Q. So if there’s one thing you would like people to take away from your speech, what would it be?

A. I know everyone says, don’t treat different people like they’re different because although they’re different, it doesn’t mean that they don’t get treated the same, you know? I just want people to know that deaf people aren’t dumb people and they lead lives like everyone else.

Q. How has this experience changed you?

I’m already more confident in myself, before I used to not really take opportunities. As soon as I entered that workshop, I was buzzing. I was like, this is me.
This is what I want to do. I’ve been confused about what I’m gonna do when I’m older, but this experience helped me decide why I want to do it towards the future. I want to be on stage and I want to spread awareness about topics that matter to me.

I didn’t realise how much I loved it until I took part in the Speak Out Challenge.

Q. Lastly, what is one thing people don’t know about you and would be surprised to find out?

I’m very good at drawing. I can play a few instruments if you really put me out there. I’m a good singer.
I’m a good artist because my mom is an artist and so I follow in her footsteps and I do painting.

Thank you Zara for sharing a bit about yourself and your experience! Best of luck in Year 11 and all that is yet to come 🙂