No Triumph No Tragedy

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No Triumph, No Tragedy

Documentaries

Factual: Life Stories

Factual: Disability

Peter White talks to disabled people who have achieved outstanding success in their field

Peter White talks to disabled people who have bucked the odds and achieved outstanding success in a variety of fields

No Triumph, No Tragedy: Haben Girma

Haben Girma

BBC Radio 4 - No Triumph, No Tragedy, Haben Girma

In No Triumph No Tragedy Peter White interviews deaf blind human rights lawyer Haben Girma

In No Triumph No Tragedy Peter White meets Haben Girma, the first deaf blind graduate from Harvard law school who is now breaking barriers to tackle discrimination across the world

In this edition of No Triumph No Tragedy, Peter White, himself blind since birth, meets Haben Girma, the first deaf blind graduate from Harvard law school who is now breaking barriers to tackle discrimination on a world wide scale. 

Haben's father was from Ethiopia and her Mum from Eritrea: they were determined to not restrict her in any way and she grew up in a noisy rough and tumble home, staying in mainstream education and even helping build a school in Mali when she was just fifteen. She said that as a young child she didn't fully realise she was different: she thought everyone was deaf and blind!

This upbringing helped shape Haben's approach to life, including her stubborn refusal to accept any limits on what she can achieve. When her school cafeteria menus were unreadable to her, she threatened to take them to court! And this fierce campaigning streak got her into Harvard: the first deaf blind student to graduate from the law school.

She is now a human rights lawyer tackling access to the internet and therefore to most aspects of life for other disabled people. She is a firm believer that small changes by the big companies can have huge knock on benefits to people across the world and that they could do far more to help. It's a message she takes all over, using her brain machine and a typist manically transcribing the words of those around her in a system she helped to develop:

I want more companies to realise that people with disabilities are talented and an amazing market. We are one of the largest minority groups. There are over a billion disabled people across the world and so an organisation that invests in accessibility gets to tap into this huge market."


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