A 23-year-old blind lady identified as Jessikah Inaba has broken a record in a United Kingdom University by becoming its first blind black barrister.
Inabah qualified for the feat last week after studying for five whole years at the University of Law in London.
Inaba testified that she was able to complete her entire course using Braille and with the help of her friends and tutors.
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She said:
“It’s been crazy. I still can’t really believe I’ve done it. One day I’ll wake up and realise how amazing this is. It was hard and I often thought of giving up, but my supportive family gave me courage and strength.
“I always believed in myself from the start, there’s nothing about me which means this isn’t possible. I know I can do this job really well, and the more people like me who go through training the easier it will become.
“It’s a really good feeling, I know I’m giving hope to others in similar situations to mine. There’s a triple-glazed glass ceiling. I’m not the most common gender or colour, and I have a disability, but by pushing through I’m easing the burden on the next person like me.”
“I was spending more time preparing my own learning materials than I was studying. I was hospitalised because I kept fainting in October 2019 because I’d been functioning on about three hours sleep a night for two years.
“I would sometimes get 45 minutes a day to eat, but often I ate while at my computer. The university had other visually impaired people who used text to speech, but I just can’t work like that.
“I need to read it physically for myself or I can’t remember it. Everyone is different and has a different work around for various situations. A lot of people registered blind have some vision, so they can sometimes use large print, or some blind people manage well just by listening to text.
“Braille is expensive to produce because you need a lot of special software and equipment.”
Braille is a form of written language for blind people, in which characters are represented by patterns of raised dots that are felt with the fingertips.
Braille can be read on a special screen that usually gives one line at a time, or from specially printed books.
