Many people regard blindness as an inability to do anything but some visually impaired people do not let their condition take control of their life or career.
Tiofelus Jeremia, a law student at the University of Namibia is one out of many who proved that you don’t only have to have sight to follow your dreams. He lost his sight unexpectedly in high school when he was diagnosed with an allergy impairing his sight. When his sight faded away completely adjusting to the changes in his life was a slow and difficult process. Despite his condition, Jeremia wanted to further his studies and enrolled at the University of Namibia (Unam) for Bachelor of Laws. “When I started at university life was tough, it was my first time as a visually impaired and nothing seemed easy,” he says
Studying was a challenge for Jeremia as well as dealing with teachers with no experience of teaching visually impaired people. He recalls being told that he will not make it. “People never believed I will make it this far but I’ve prove them wrong. I had to develop some techniques to pull through and I’m still doing it. I had to record the lessons and in my own time make notes for myself.” With aspiration to prove to those who doubted him that disabled and blind people can have dreams too, Jeremia kept on pushing and as a result graduated in 2013. After obtaining his degree, Jeremia enrolled for his Honours (LLB (Hons)) which he is currently busy pursing at Unam. He has been receiving assistance from Ombaye Fishing, that has been providing for his daily needs, school materials like the recorder he uses to record his lessons, a laptop, and a printer, just to mention a few.
“The assistant I get helps me a lot. It makes things easier for me like getting all my school materials together and making studying stress-free. I urges those who can assist to also assist my colleagues, a little help makes a difference and I appreciates the help I get for my school.” says Jeremiah who is a member at Namibian Federation for the Visually Impaired and wish to work at a local law firm after his studies.