FAY­OLA K J FRAS­ER

“100% Ba­jan, born and raised,” the Most Ho­n­ourable Ker­ryann Ifill, FB, re­cent­ly award­ed as the Pub­lic & Civic Con­tri­bu­tions Lau­re­ate for 2024 in the An­tho­ny N Sab­ga Caribbean Ex­cel­lence Awards, has spent the last three decades in ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice to her coun­try and the wider re­gion, ac­tive­ly ex­pand­ing ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion and em­ploy­ment for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties.

Ifill has worn many hats over the years, as a sen­a­tor in the Bar­ba­dos Sen­ate as well as an ac­tivist, break­ing bar­ri­ers and push­ing bound­aries, re­fus­ing to be dis­count­ed be­cause of her dis­abil­i­ty.

At the age of five, Ifill lost her sight, and due to the lack of fa­cil­i­ties for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties at the time, she was tak­en out of main­stream ed­u­ca­tion and start­ed at­tend­ing what is present­ly known as the Irv­ing Wil­son School for chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties. Raised by her moth­er and grand­moth­er, Ifill grew up in a com­mu­ni­ty of strong women and al­ways felt com­pelled to pur­sue what she want­ed, de­fy­ing oth­ers’ ex­pec­ta­tions of her where they did not align with her self-be­lief. When in­ter­viewed by a re­porter at 14 years old for a news­pa­per fea­ture, she was asked if she could have one wish grant­ed, what would it be. Ifill did not wish for her sight back, but in­stead, un­hesi­tat­ing­ly wished that she could at­tend a “reg­u­lar” sec­ondary school and ex­pe­ri­ence what it was like. The then min­is­ter of youth af­fairs sub­se­quent­ly came across the ar­ti­cle, and Ifill was trans­ferred to one of the top sec­ondary schools in Bar­ba­dos, The Comber­mere School. Ac­knowl­edg­ing the school as “be­ing known for tak­ing chances,” as a part of its rich his­to­ry, Comber­mere al­so was one of the first on the is­land to wel­come Black peo­ple. Ifill’s time at the school was be­yond the an­swer to her wish, as it deeply mould­ed her, ig­nit­ing her cu­rios­i­ty and cen­ter­ing the im­por­tance of ed­u­ca­tion in her life.

Af­ter com­plet­ing her stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Ifill grad­u­at­ed with her Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence De­gree in So­ci­ol­o­gy and Psy­chol­o­gy (Hons), as the first blind per­son to com­plete a de­gree at the UWI Cave Hill. Sug­gest­ing that there were few ea­ger em­ploy­ers at her doorstep, Ifill job-hunt­ed for two years, un­til she was hired as a project co­or­di­na­tor with the Bar­ba­dos Coun­cil for the Dis­abled in 2002. For Ifill, this was the be­gin­ning of a ca­reer de­vot­ed to ser­vice, im­ple­ment­ing var­i­ous pro­grammes to sup­port the dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty.

She was then hired in 2010 by the Na­tion­al Dis­abil­i­ties Unit to work on their projects us­ing as­sis­tive tech­nol­o­gy to help peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties. “I be­came pas­sion­ate about peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties be­com­ing more,” Ifill says, “and us­ing tech­nol­o­gy to em­pow­er them.” In that role, she taught vi­su­al­ly im­paired peo­ple how to use screen read­ers, utilise Mi­crosoft Suite, and browse the in­ter­net, giv­ing them the gift of com­fort and ease of do­ing sim­ple things like pay­ing bills on­line, which many peo­ple in the able com­mu­ni­ty take for grant­ed.

Mak­ing strides for the dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty

De­ter­mi­na­tion is one of Ifill’s most out­stand­ing char­ac­ter traits, and she has har­nessed that spir­it of re­solve to de­fy so­ci­etal ex­pec­ta­tions of her. One of her most sig­nif­i­cant mile­stones has been her ap­point­ment as a sen­a­tor in 2008 and al­so as the pres­i­dent of the Bar­ba­dos Sen­ate in 2012, as the youngest per­son, the first woman and the on­ly per­son with a dis­abil­i­ty to serve in that role.

At 38 years old, she took the role head­first, ho­n­oured to be able to serve her coun­try­men and thrilled for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to make a dif­fer­ence. Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, Ifill worked on leg­is­la­tion to make strides for the dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty, served on a Com­mit­tee on In­clu­sive Ed­u­ca­tion, and draft­ed pol­i­cy for the Gov­ern­ment on in­te­gra­tion and work­ing with peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties.

Re­flect­ing on her achieve­ments, Ifill does not con­sid­er her pub­lic-fac­ing roles as the high­lights of her ca­reer, but the changes and im­pact she has made in the lives of oth­ers as her most pre­cious mo­ments. “I have men­tored stu­dents who are blind and have now be­come at­tor­neys at law,” she says thought­ful­ly, re­mem­ber­ing be­ing told her­self that she could not be­come an at­tor­ney many years pri­or.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, her ad­vo­ca­cy and ac­tivism have played a part in the top school in Bar­ba­dos wel­com­ing its first com­plete­ly un­sight­ed stu­dent. Not one to rest on her lau­rels, Ifill has con­tin­ued her work in the po­lit­i­cal/pol­i­cy space by serv­ing on the Bar­ba­dos Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form Com­mis­sion and al­so as a mem­ber of the Bar­ba­dos Na­tion­al Com­mit­tee for the Mon­i­tor­ing of the Rights of the Child. In 2023, her life­long ded­i­ca­tion to the bet­ter­ment of her coun­try was recog­nised as she was award­ed the high­est na­tion­al ho­n­our in Bar­ba­dos, the Or­der of Free­dom.

“In the Caribbean, there are low ex­pec­ta­tions when it comes to peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties.” Ifill’s life work has not on­ly sought to break every ceil­ing im­posed on her but al­so to en­sure that the coun­tries of the Caribbean cre­ate path­ways that are more ac­ces­si­ble for those with dis­abil­i­ties. She deems in­clu­sive leg­is­la­tion and aware­ness-rais­ing as two meth­ods in­te­gral to the im­prove­ment of the re­gion’s in­fra­struc­ture for the dis­abled. “We need to pro­vide more mean­ing­ful em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties,” she says, in­di­cat­ing that “liv­ing life with a dis­abil­i­ty is an ex­pen­sive un­der­tak­ing.” For ex­am­ple, hav­ing to take taxis dai­ly in­stead of dri­ving is a ma­jor cost that Ifill has to con­tend with. She al­so ad­vo­cates that in­clu­sive ed­u­ca­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties must be cen­tred on na­tion­al agen­das, as no per­son should be blocked from learn­ing.

“Phe­nom­e­nal woman. That’s me.” These re­cur­ring lines of Maya An­gelou’s well-loved po­em speak to wom­an­hood in all its glo­ry and di­vin­i­ty and cer­tain­ly de­scribe the enig­ma that is Ker­ryann Ifill.

Pon­der­ing this po­em, Ifill in­di­cates that “this was writ­ten for all women,” and An­gelou doesn’t de­scribe any one par­tic­u­lar one, or spec­i­fy that phe­nom­e­nal women come in a cer­tain shape or form. Lean­ing in­to their phe­nom­e­nal abil­i­ty is what Ifill sug­gests that all women should do, re­gard­less of abil­i­ty, and we should “not let any­one dis­count us, change us or dis­tract us from our goals.”

For women with dis­abil­i­ties, Ifill pre­scribes the ex­act ad­vice for which she is a liv­ing, breath­ing tes­ta­ment to, the “be­lief that you are a woman of worth and val­ue like any­one else, not al­low­ing any­one to de­ter­mine what you can do.”

Award­ed for her ex­cel­lence, courage, re­lent­less for­ti­tude and de­ter­mi­na­tion to serve oth­ers, Ker­ryann Ifill, FB con­tin­ues to give to Bar­ba­dos and the wider Caribbean, an ex­am­ple of the phe­nom­e­nal woman that we can all as­pire to be.