For many of us, surviving college with all of its academic and real-life hurdles is a challenge in itself—but imagine doing so without being able to hear or see. Seems impossible, right? Not for Haben Girma, an Eritrean-American who was the first deaf-blind person to graduate from Harvard Law in 2013. She admits that she has an older brother, who is also deaf-blind, that didn’t receive the same opportunities as her.
“When my grandmother took my brother to a school in East Africa, they told her that deaf-blind children can’t go to school. There was simply no chance. When my family moved to the U.S. and I was also born deaf-blind, they were amazed by the opportunities afforded by ADA. … For my grandmother back in Africa, my success seemed like magic. For all of us here, we know that people with disabilities succeed not by magic but through opportunities.”
Outside of her amazing academic accomplishments, Girma works as an accessibility and inclusion advocate where she urges tech companies to keep people with disabilities in mind when creating their products. Like a true student of law, she brings up a valid point that inclusion of this large minority group is an opportunity for tech companies to gain more consumers. A win-win for everyone.
And like all of us, Girma has a pet peeve: The words “normal” and “inspiration.” She mentions that these words paint disabilities as something to overcome versus something that makes people diverse.
TELL US: What are ways companies can be more inclusive of people with disabilities?