Resh­ma Ra­goonath

The best birth­day gift ever, said Holy Faith Con­vent, Cou­va, stu­dent Shami­ka Hen­ry yes­ter­day, de­scrib­ing how it felt to get a full cer­tifi­cate in her Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) ex­ams, de­spite be­ing blind.On Tues­day, Hen­ry, of San Fer­nan­do Street, San Fer­nan­do, turned 18 and she said she prayed hard for good grades.With her moth­er Allyson Re­beiro at her side the teenag­er went on­line on Tues­day evening to check her CSEC re­sults. She prayed silent­ly as she wait­ed for her re­sults to ap­pear.

When her moth­er read the re­sults to her, the ec­sta­t­ic teenag­er said: "I want­ed to fall down when I heard I got a one in math­e­mat­ics and two dis­tinc­tions."Hen­ry, speak­ing to the T&T Guardian at her home yes­ter­day, said she had ex­pect­ed to do well but was sur­prised to have ex­celled at maths be­cause it was a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge for her in school."I was pray­ing hard and work­ing hard to­wards it," she said, smil­ing.Re­beiro said her daugh­ter was an in­spi­ra­tion to all and she was proud of her re­solve.

"This is to en­cour­age oth­ers. To any­one fac­ing any chal­lenge, whether it is phys­i­cal or not, this should en­cour­age you. Do not be dis­cour­aged. You can ac­com­plish any­thing. For you any­thing is pos­si­ble," Re­beiro said.Hen­ry, an as­pir­ing singer and po­et, and her moth­er said they were grate­ful to soft­ware de­vel­op­ment com­pa­ny RSC In­ter­na­tion­al, based in Pe­nal, for re-de­sign­ing its maths soft­ware pro­gram to help Hen­ry im­prove her maths.

She said they worked close­ly with her in the months lead­ing to the CSEC ex­am­i­na­tions and she want­ed to do well to ex­press her grat­i­tude."When they cre­at­ed Maths So­lu­tions for me it made me feel it was worth it to know that peo­ple were try­ing to make things eas­i­er for me. (I thought) why not put in all the ef­fort to do well? When I heard the re­sults I said it was the best birth­day gift ever."

She got dis­tinc­tions in Eng­lish Lan­guage and Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture, a one in math­e­mat­ics and twos in Span­ish, prin­ci­ples of busi­ness, mu­sic and the­atre arts. She was un­able to com­plete her bi­ol­o­gy ex­am be­cause she was hos­pi­talised but her moth­er said she would re­sit the ex­am in Jan­u­ary.Re­beiro, a Span­ish teacher at St Bene­dict's Col­lege, La Ro­maine, said she was grate­ful for the soft­ware be­cause Hen­ry had been get­ting low grades in maths be­cause most of the ques­tions in­volved di­a­grams.

But she said she had faith in God her daugh­ter would ex­cel.She added: "God al­ways placed one of his peo­ple there to help us along this five-year jour­ney. When I saw the re­sults I was over­joyed, ec­sta­t­ic. I went down on my knees and gave praise to Je­sus."I promised her a shop­ping spree and she will get it. I was ex­pect­ing her to do well. I was nev­er doubt­ful."Her hus­band, Joel, has been a big in­flu­ence on Hen­ry and has sup­port­ed her every step of the way, she said.

She said yes­ter­day Hen­ry was se­lect­ed for a spe­cial space camp in Al­aba­ma, Unit­ed States, and would leave next month.Hen­ry said she want­ed to do a de­gree in lan­guages and lit­er­a­ture and would be do­ing busi­ness man­age­ment, Span­ish and lit­er­a­ture for Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tions (CAPE).Hen­ry, the sixth of sev­en sib­lings, be­gan los­ing her vi­sion short­ly af­ter pass­ing for Holy Faith Con­vent five years ago.

She went to Boston for surgery to re­pair a de­tached reti­na and glau­co­ma but it was un­suc­cess­ful and she lost the sight in both eyes.Re­beiro said in 2012, when they re­turned to Trinidad, Hen­ry en­rolled in the School for the Blind and com­plet­ed the two-year course in five months.

She was al­lowed to re­turn to Holy Faith and move up to Form Three to­geth­er with the girls she start­ed Form One with, even though she missed Sec­ond Form and did not com­plete First Form.She said the school com­mu­ni­ty was good to her daugh­ter and nur­tured her.

MORE IN­FO

Maths soft­ware a big help

Yes­ter­day soft­ware de­sign­er Raj Ram­dass, who was in­stru­men­tal in re­work­ing the pro­gram for Hen­ry, said he was thrilled when he heard about her CSEC re­sults."I prayed and thanked the Lord for her re­sults. When I met her she won my heart and she touched me. I do not have a daugh­ter and I felt as if she was my daugh­ter and when I heard, I was so hap­py and proud of her," he said.

Ram­dass said he, to­geth­er with Dr Fayad Ali and Shereen Khan, em­barked on a pi­lot project to de­vel­op maths soft­ware lo­cal­ly and im­prove maths re­sults.In 2012 they did a pi­lot project with Union Clax­ton Bay Sec­ondary us­ing the soft­ware and the school at­tained a 300 per cent im­prove­ment in maths. He said the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion part­nered with the com­pa­ny to dis­trib­ute the soft­ware to schools and do work­shops with teach­ers. They worked with 95 schools.