Cheap NFL Jerseys China yizlkmbf

fd9je6mn

Julie Lewis is a ‘Special Person’“I was better at answering questions off the bat, rather than writing them down. I guess you could say I was bright. Something was wrong with my eyes, but nothing was wrong with my brain.”By Neil MarksJulie Lewis could easily escape thought unless you really get to know her. She is not alone. Most dismiss persons who are disabled, or more appropriately, differently able, putting them in a bracket of the uneducated and unaccomplished. Those who seem to get around are those who might have benefited from a supportive family. Most are looked down on with pity.Julie Lewis has a story of her own, and it’s a story that speaks of perseverance and of determination. And, does she have a sense of humour!So, how exactly does a blind woman end up being a broadcaster, and a senior one at that, in a country that has for the most part neglected the human rights and dignity of disabled persons? Julie Lewis’ story is an inspiration, and she stands out among special persons. Her career in radio spanned the last 25 years.GROWING BLINDOn September 16, 1965, Julie Lewis came into this world. She was born with congenital cataract, a medical condition in which the lens of the eye is clouded. Of course, her parents, Marie and Dudley Lewis, had no way of knowing this. They were just interested in the joy of bringing a new child into the world.When she was about three weeks, Julie’s mother began noticing that she was not behaving like a regular baby. She was always crying and staring. As months went by, her behaviour did not improve. Her parents tried everything to make her comfortable. Was the house too small? Maybe it was too cluttered?When she was 18 months old, Julie’s mother took a good stare into her eyes, and observed two shiny white spots. She didn’t know what it was, but a visit to the doctor clarified matters. Marie could now understand her daughter’s behaviour.Julie Lewis in the lobby of NCN Studios.Months later, Julie’s parents made a decision to let her undergo surgery to remove the cataract. The first operation was done to the left eye. It was successful; but Julie woke up and discovered her eye bandaged up.“I promptly ripped everything out,” Julie recalls. Today, she still has a bulge in the eye as a result of that.For the surgery to the next eye, it was no surprise that Julie woke up to find her hands and feet tied to the cradle.Though near sighted, she started to go to school. It goes without saying how much of a challenge that was. She had to be alert mentally, as she couldn’t see what was on the chalk board.“I never saw any lines,” she recalls. At break time, she would go close to the chalk board to take whatever notes that were not yet removed. She also received help from classmates when she would ask them to tell her what was written.As she grew older,Wholesale Jerseys US, she became a laughing stock, and lost many a spectacle from falling down or bumping into things.When Julie was ten, she was playing with the family’s dog along with her siblings when the chain used to tie the dog swung into her right eye.“I can’t tell you how painful that was.”At age 11, Julie started to lose her sight completely and she got into more accidents.“One day I would fall and bruise some part of my body, and then another day I might get another bruise right there,” she remembers. But even though she was going blind, that didn’t slow her down; and her parents didn’t house her up either.Julie continued to go to school, even though it was a battle to do so. Her best days were when time came for “mental” classes in school. She was fastest at working out a math problem “by head.”“I was better at answering questions off the bat, rather than writing them down. I guess you could say I was bright,” she jokes.“Something was wrong with my eyes, but nothing was wrong with my brain,” she quips.Her parents wanted to ensure that she received a good education and wanted to send her to a school in Trinidad that catered for children with special needs. But it so happened that the very year they made that decision, the Trinidad government had taken a decision to stop accepting foreign students.Julie enrolled as a student of the David Rose School for the Handicapped in Georgetown.  The class for the blind originally had about six students and she was the only girl. There, she learnt Braille, a system that is used to help blind people read.Julie Lewis with one of the old typewriters she started working on at GBC. Learning Braille involves passing the fingers over characters made up of one to six embossed points. Julie found out that she learnt Braille fastest using her left index finger. She isn’t quite sure why that is.She left the David Rose School in 1980 to join the St Rose’s High. It was one of the schools the Ministry of Education started to use to integrate students with special needs into the normal classroom. Julie was now on her way to a successful school life.Teachers Daphne Franklin and Ingrid Peters (who was blind and benefited from the education in Trinidad Julie’s parents wanted to send her to) helped her to write the examinations offered by the Caribbean Examinations Council. And what do you know, she did exceedingly well over the other visually impaired students who wrote the exams. Someone read out the questions and she typed the answers. She scored a Grade One in History and Grade Two in English Language and English Literature.But that couldn’t guarantee her a job. So Julie decided to write Biology at the GCE ‘O’ Levels. She came out with a C, saying she was constrained by not being able to complete the questions that deal with diagrams.Still not satisfied, Julie decided to continue school and write History and Literature at the GCE ‘A’ Levels.  It was preparing for this exam that helped to further develop her love for International Relations. As a child, she had a love for radio, more particularly news programmes such as the BBC or Voice of America. So when she knew the time for those to come up, she would get close to the short wave radio her family owned.The History exam she was preparing for had an extensive focus on international relations, and Julie thoroughly enjoyed it. But she encountered some opposition, but not from fellow students this time, but from a teacher.Just before the exam, while the teacher said glowing things about her favourite students, she turned to Julie and told her, ‘Good Luck; you will need it.”“I was very hurt by that, but when the results came in, it turns out I topped the class, beating her favourite student,” Julie says.A CAREER IN RADIO When she completed school, Daphne Franklin got her a place at the Guyana Broadcasting Corporation as part of the radio station’s work study programme. That was in July 1984.Her job was audio typing. Since she was quick at typing, averaging 85 words per minute, she was responsible for transcribing a programme called “Farmers Notebook.” The programme contained useful information for farmers, and so the contents of the programme were printed for distribution after broadcast.The two-month attachment at GBC soon came to an end, but to Julie’s surprise, she was hired by the radio station on September 28, 1984.At the time, the then government was concerned that certain religious programmes that were being broadcast contained political language. And so Julie’s job was to listen to the programmes before they were put on air to ensure that the contents were purely of a religious nature.  She had to recommend that a few of those programmes not be aired, and sometimes when her decisions were not followed, it created problems.At one time, she thought that a programme had content that was disparaging to Afro-Guyanese, but her programme director didn’t think so. As a result, the programme was aired and that created a furore, not only with the politicians, but also the public.But Julie had her eyes set on further education. Because of her love for international relations, she wanted to study that at the University of Guyana. She had meant to start studying after the first year at work, but it didn’t happen. In 1989, she decided it was time, and applied. However, she got no response.She later heard rumours that the University had concerns about how she would get around the University and didn’t admit her.The following year, she decided to apply again, and thankfully, the man now in charge of admissions was Albert Butters, who was the Registrar for Exams for schools when she wrote the CXC exams earlier on. This time, there were no barriers, or so it seemed. She gained admission.But the radio station did not allow workers to attend University and work at the same time. However, Julie started University without the knowledge of her employers, sneaking out at times to attend classes. We should mention though that she had decided to pursue a degree in communications.Her employers soon found out, and she had to choose between classes or her job. She resigned, but was retained to do special programmes. These included “Reach out and touch” a special programme she conceptualised to help persons with disabilities. That programme is still on the air today.When she graduated from the University, she returned to the radio station, and sure enough, Fazil Azeez, the General Manager was willing to hire her as a reporter. She didn’t see it as a problem and accepted the offer. In time she was promoted to senior reporter, then assistant editor with responsibility for training.In November 2003, she won a Fellowship offered by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association. In that year, she was the only one in radio accepted by the Fellowship. When she returned to Guyana, the government had decided to merge the radio station with the state-owned television station. The decision was made to pay off the workers, and some were re-hired. Julie was one of them. She was offered the position of producer, and she accepted.In fact, she welcomed the change from the busy life of reporters. She remembers having to work a 24-hour shift once, and of covering a Parliamentary debate for 12 straight hours. So the break from the uncertain hours of work as a reporter was welcome.And of course, Julie did not escape the dangers of being a reporter. She recalls that at one time she was at the headquarters of the Guyana Public Service Union when it decided to call off a strike action by nurses. Apparently, all were not happy and all sorts of objects began to be thrown around and Julie was caught in the quagmire. She remembers the horror of having to head to the floor and grabbing on to persons to get a way out.So, she didn’t mind no longer being a reporter, and she continues to be a producer.In 2000, the workers lobbied for Julie to sit on the board as the workers’ representative, and she also became an executive of the Union branch representing workers.THE DISABILITY MOVEMENT Julie Lewis has over time used her influence to help other persons with disabilities. In 1985, she joined the Guyana Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities. She also joined the Guyana Society for the Blind, of which she is the president, and served as the First Vice President of the Caribbean Coalition for the Blind as well as the Vice Chairperson of Disabled Peoples International.Julie has also served on the National Commission on Disability. One of the major things the Commission has been able to do is to help formulate a Bill on Disability Rights.  Julie figures the Bill has completed its final draft and it could be presented to Parliament by the Minister of Health soon.She feels the legislation will address many of the hardships those with disabilities face. For example, she said while the law specifies rights for every sort of thing, such as the right to education and the right to work, these are still challenges persons with disabilities face.Julie is saddened that over the years, the programme to integrate persons with disabilities into the school system remains poor. She feels that part of the problem has to do with the lack of teachers trained in special education. Even if they are trained, she said this field does not offer much incentive since if a teacher is in line for promotion, he/she would be promoted in the general system.She said the school system does not provide for children with disabilities to get a rounded education and she hopes this could be addressed in the near future.GETTING AROUNDJulie Lewis is completely independent. This means that she doesn’t the need the help of anyone to do anything for her. She cooks, washes, irons, and cleans her own house.She also puts on her own make-up, combs her own hair, and also selects her clothes and makes sure she doesn’t mismatch too often, even if she ever does. The trick is in the fabric. She might just have to ask a person once what colour a certain item of clothing is. And once she has mastered the texture, she knows which other item of clothing it would go well with. As for shoes, she prefers to go with just black, so she wouldn’t look like a fashion wreck.Julie thinks about marriage, so much so that it appears some days “I am the only one thinking about marriage!” She says it appears that a blind man is more likely to get married than a blind woman.As for getting around, Julie almost always uses public transportation and she says most of the minibus operators are kind to her. Even those who occasionally pull and tug at her to get in their bus sometimes don’t charge her.Julie Lewis has lived her life to the fullest. She has never allowed her disability to hinder her from her pursuits. Her quest for independence and for reaching out to others with disabilities is reason enough for her to be deemed a special person.