Fay­ola Fras­er

Azaria Bis­sooon­dath has al­ready learned lessons in brav­ery, dili­gence and re­silience that many adults spend a life­time try­ing to mas­ter. Bis­sooon­dath, hail­ing from Princes Town, cel­e­brat­ed her 13th birth­day on June 11 and is prepar­ing to em­bark on a new chap­ter of her life as she tran­si­tions to sec­ondary school. With an im­pair­ment that many may view as in­sur­mount­able, Bis­soon­dath has faced some of the great chal­lenges of child­hood, such as the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment, with courage and con­fi­dence.

Bis­soon­dath lives with a vi­su­al im­pair­ment that af­fects both of her eyes to a great de­gree. In her left eye, she can on­ly dis­tin­guish shad­ows, while vi­sion in her right eye is blur­ry with­out her cor­rec­tive glass­es. At just four years old, her moth­er re­calls play­ing games with her that in­volved cov­er­ing her eyes, on­ly to re­alise that Bis­soon­dath could not see out of her left eye at all. She sought help for her daugh­ter, and doc­tors di­ag­nosed her with glau­co­ma, an un­usu­al con­di­tion in chil­dren, which had al­ready dam­aged her vi­sion.

Fol­low­ing that di­ag­no­sis, Bis­soon­dath’s moth­er says that pre­serv­ing the vi­sion in her right eye is a pri­or­i­ty. Through med­ica­tion, her par­ents work dili­gent­ly to en­sure that the pres­sure in the right eye is kept un­der con­trol to pre­vent fur­ther dam­age. De­spite these med­ical re­al­i­ties, Bis­soon­dath rarely al­lows her im­pair­ment to de­fine her. In­stead, she fo­cus­es on what she can do rather than what she can­not.

“School is easy, but it can be a lit­tle hard when I sit in the back,” she ex­plains of her school ex­pe­ri­ence. School has been one place where her de­ter­mi­na­tion has con­tin­ued to shine through. While Bis­soon­dath ad­mits that learn­ing was a bit more dif­fi­cult if she were to be seat­ed to­wards the back of the class­room, she has found that sit­ting clos­er to the front makes a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence. She al­so cred­its her teach­ers’ kind­ness with mak­ing her school life eas­i­er and more en­joy­able. Even con­sid­er­ing her im­pair­ment, Bis­soon­dath en­joys read­ing books, and says that her favourite sub­ject is Lan­guage Arts, be­cause it’s “the eas­i­est for me.”

This year, Bis­son­dath faced one of the most sig­nif­i­cant mile­stones in a young stu­dent’s aca­d­e­m­ic jour­ney: the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA). At present, she is a stu­dent at Broth­ers Pres­by­ter­ian School, but will soon be a sec­ondary school stu­dent. De­spite her vi­su­al im­pair­ment, she com­plet­ed the ex­am­i­na­tion with­out re­ceiv­ing any ac­com­mo­da­tions. Al­though her moth­er said that ef­forts had been made to se­cure as­sis­tance, due to ad­min­is­tra­tive de­lays and the lost med­ical files at the hos­pi­tal, the nec­es­sary med­ical doc­u­men­ta­tion was giv­en to her too late for sup­port to be arranged be­fore the ex­am.

Even so, Bis­soon­dath per­se­vered.

She at­tend­ed ex­tra lessons to pre­pare her­self and ap­proached the ex­am­i­na­tion with con­fi­dence. When asked how she found the SEA, her re­sponse was sim­ple: it was “easy,” and she fin­ished some parts, such as the Lan­guage Arts sec­tion, in ten min­utes. Math­e­mat­ics posed a few chal­lenges, but over­all, she nav­i­gat­ed the ex­pe­ri­ence with re­mark­able com­po­sure and self-be­lief.

As she looks ahead to life at her first choice, San Fer­nan­do Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School (Mod­Sec), Bis­soon­dath feels ex­cit­ed and con­fi­dent, but ad­mits to hav­ing a few nerves. Like many stu­dents en­ter­ing sec­ondary school, un­cer­tain­ty about a new en­vi­ron­ment looms large. Her moth­er al­so ac­knowl­edges that the tran­si­tion may present prac­ti­cal chal­lenges, in­clud­ing help­ing Bis­soon­dath learn to trav­el in­de­pen­dent­ly and en­sur­ing she has ac­cess to trans­porta­tion that ac­com­mo­dates her needs.

Be­neath her cheer­ful per­son­al­i­ty lies an is­sue that many chil­dren face. Bis­soon­dath has ex­pe­ri­enced bul­ly­ing in the past, an ex­pe­ri­ence that she hopes will not be part of her re­al­i­ty in sec­ondary school. Im­por­tant­ly, she found the courage to speak up, con­fid­ing in her fam­i­ly and her teach­ers. Their in­ter­ven­tion serves as a re­minder of the im­por­tance of cre­at­ing safe and in­clu­sive spaces where every child feels val­ued and pro­tect­ed.

Sup­port sys­tems, how­ev­er, are con­tin­u­ous­ly be­ing put in place. Bis­soon­dath’s moth­er cred­its or­gan­i­sa­tions such as the Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, which has been as­sist­ing them with ac­cess to books and ad­vo­cat­ing for the ac­com­mo­da­tions she may re­quire in fu­ture ex­am­i­na­tions. These in­ter­ven­tions will play an im­por­tant role in en­sur­ing that Bis­soon­dath re­ceives the sup­port nec­es­sary to con­tin­ue to thrive aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly.

Bis­soon­dath is every bit the typ­i­cal young girl.

She en­joys spend­ing time play­ing games on her phone and ex­plor­ing the vir­tu­al worlds of Roblox. She says that dur­ing her Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion, she is “look­ing for­ward to hav­ing fun un­til it’s time for sec­ondary school.” When it comes to food, she does not hes­i­tate to name her favourites: rice and cur­ry chick­en and KFC rank at the top of the list. She al­so shares her home with her younger broth­er, who forms part of the close-knit fam­i­ly sup­port­ing her every step of the way.

As Bis­soon­dath pre­pares to be­gin this next chap­ter, her sto­ry is not one of lim­i­ta­tion but of per­se­ver­ance. She has faced ob­sta­cles that would chal­lenge any­one, yet she con­tin­ues to move for­ward with de­ter­mi­na­tion, hu­mour and hope.

Sec­ondary school will un­doubt­ed­ly bring new ex­pe­ri­ences and new tests, but if her jour­ney so far has shown any­thing, it is that Azaria Bis­sooon­dath pos­sess­es a strength of char­ac­ter that al­lows her to see far be­yond the bar­ri­ers placed in her path.