Haben Girma has become Harvard Law’s first deaf-blind graduate and an example of determination for the rest of the world. According to HNGN News the 27-year-old wants to help more disabled people strive like her.
The Eritrean-American was born in California after her mother escaped Eritrea in the early 1980s. Today, Girma is a successful attorney who advocates for civil rights of people with disabilities, reported the Diplomat News Network. She says that she is proof that if you believe that you can achieve a goal, then you will. The 27-year-old’s family comes from Eritrea, a country in the Eastern region of Africa. Being born deaf and blind in her home country did not give her many options for access to education, noted India.com. There were no schools for people with special physical disabilities, and it would have been impossible for Haben to get the education she needed to become a lawyer. Her older brother was also born deaf-blind and did not have access to special education in Eritrea, either.
Girma went to Lewis & Clark College in Idaho, where she graduated magna cum laude in 2010. She later matriculated to Harvard Law School and earned her J.D. in 2013.