Faith refuses to let visual impairment define her

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

For­mer Whim An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School stu­dent Faith Gra­ham may have been born vi­su­al­ly im­paired but she has re­fused to let that de­fine her.

The 11-year-old was born with both her eyes un­der­de­vel­oped and a cataract in her right eye, fac­ing chal­lenges from an ear­ly age.

How­ev­er, with her faith in God in­stilled from a young age, Faith has re­lied on de­ter­mi­na­tion and hard work to achieve her goals.

She re­ceived her Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) re­sults on Thurs­day night and will be head­ed to Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view at Whim An­gli­can yes­ter­day, Faith ex­plained how her vi­sion af­fect­ed her school­work.

“When I am try­ing to read from the board, I can­not see the words prop­er­ly. It’s a bit small for me. I can’t re­al­ly see from too far. I have to sit in the front to see.”

Whim An­gli­can prin­ci­pal Chris­tine Benoi-Hack­ett told Guardian Me­dia the school pro­vid­ed as­sis­tance to Faith and oth­er chil­dren who have phys­i­cal chal­lenges.

She said the school con­tact­ed the Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion and the Ed­u­ca­tion Di­vi­sion to see what as­sis­tance could be ren­dered.

How­ev­er, she said Faith nev­er want­ed any pref­er­en­tial or spe­cial treat­ment and re­fused to use her vi­sion as an ex­cuse.

“For a short time she had an aide that worked along with her, and we saw an im­prove­ment in her stud­ies. But Faith was a spe­cial child; she nev­er want­ed to be treat­ed as some­one with chal­lenges, and she want­ed to un­der­take any­thing that the oth­er chil­dren were un­der­tak­ing.”

She said the Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion as­sist­ed in get­ting her text­books print­ed larg­er, but Faith ini­tial­ly did not want it ad­just­ed.

How­ev­er, she is now ac­cus­tomed to it and has em­braced it as part of her per­son­al ed­u­ca­tion­al jour­ney. Her SEA ex­am pa­pers were al­so ad­just­ed with larg­er print for her.

Asked how she pre­pared for SEA, Faith replied, “I did what any oth­er per­son would do. I stud­ied for the ex­am by giv­ing my­self goals. One mo­ment I get this mark, so I striv­ing for a big­ger mark next and giv­ing my­self ques­tions to prac­tice on.”

When she is not study­ing, Faith said she en­joys watch­ing movies, danc­ing, singing and play­ing.

She dis­missed her chal­lenge as any ma­jor dis­rup­tion to her life, say­ing, “It doesn’t af­fect me that much to do the nor­mal things that every­one else does. It is ba­si­cal­ly the same.”

Her moth­er Ak­i­lah Gra­ham told Guardian Me­dia doc­tors have not rec­om­mend­ed surgery but are mon­i­tor­ing the eyes.

“They said surgery don’t make any sense. She’s see­ing so that’s the main thing. They watch­ing to see if the cataract would im­pact on her vi­sion (fur­ther).”

Faith said her be­lief in God comes from her fam­i­ly, who pray every morn­ing when they wake up.

Al­though she has not yet de­cid­ed on a ca­reer path, Faith is de­ter­mined to be “a very suc­cess­ful per­son so I can help my fam­i­ly and every­one else in need.”

She said she is look­ing for­ward to be­gin­ning her new school and “be­ing a good stu­dent” along with her new class­mates.