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A 23-year-old woman from Great Britain is being hailed as the country's first blind and Black barrister.
“There’s a triple-glazed glass ceiling. I’m not the most common gender or color, and I have a disability, but by pushing through I’m easing the burden on the next person like me,” Jessikah Inaba, 23, of North London told The Times UK.
Inaba studied at the University of Law — London Bloomsbury for five years while juggling a condition known as bilateral microphthalmia, an abnormality that develops before birth resulting in undeveloped and small eyeballs. Inaba's friends read course books to her and she even made her own Braille materials from lecture notes to complete her studies.
“I was spending more time preparing my own learning materials than I was studying,” she said.
The University of Law told The Times UK that they were happy to help provide the resources Inaba needed.
“There were challenges with sourcing materials in braille but we were pleased to be able to provide these eventually, university officials said.
inaba now uses a portable, Braille-friendly electronic machine for court proceedings that gives her the ability to read, listen and edit using her hands.
“I always believed in myself from the start — there’s nothing about me which means this isn’t possible,” Inaba said.
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