Lawyer wants to make life easier for those living with a disability

By Anesta Henry 

Attorney-at-law Janeil Odle has vowed to promote the rights of persons living with disabilities and to help Barbados become a more inclusive society.

Before a packed audience at the Courtney Blackman Grand Salle, Tom Adams Financial Centre in The City on Wednesday evening, Odle, who is blind, declared that no matter where her career takes her, she will work at ensuring that no one feels as low as she felt at specific times in her life.

She gave the public a glimpse into her life during the inaugural lecture series entitled This Is My Story, an event hosted by the National Disabilities Unit under the theme Transformative Solutions for Inclusive Development in commemoration of the Month of the Disabled.

“No one is to feel the pressure that I felt so many times going through my life. No one is to feel as excluded as I felt so many times. It is my desire to see Barbados become an inclusive place to all persons,” she said.

During the event, Odle recalled how she was treated when she decided “as a woman, an adult and a human being” she was ready to start a family.

She said many were not impressed that she became pregnant, with several questioning whether she was doing the right thing and others suggesting that she was disgracing her family.

Noting that disabilities do not discriminate, Odle, who became blind at six years old after an accident, said there were some who even queried how “a retarded woman could raise a child?”

“Or even worse, can you imagine after a long, hard, difficult delivery, your baby has been raced away into NICU [Neonatal Intensive Care Unit]. You are worried, you are scared, you are in pain, you don’t know what’s coming next. But a doctor had the audacity to come to you and ask ‘so, who gine take care of this child when he goes home?’

“At that time, I couldn’t even comprehend how I felt.

“She didn’t see me as a woman, she did not see me as having rights, as a human being, as an adult, she only saw me for my disability. And I realised at that time, that in spite of everything I have been through, everything I have accomplished, there will be persons out there who will see me for nothing more than just a blind girl because that is all I seem to be to them,” she said.

Calling for the education system to meet the needs of persons with disabilities, Odle who has accomplished academic excellence throughout her primary, secondary and tertiary school life, including First Class Honours in Law at the University of the West Indies (UWI), recalled that she almost did not make it to the High Wooding Law School in Trinidad and Tobago.

She recalled that after receiving a call from an official at Hugh Wooding to inform her that the school was not equipped to facilitate her needs as a blind person, she did go above and beyond to get accepted into the institution which was necessary for her to realise her dream of becoming an attorney-at-law.

And while she successfully graduated from Hugh Wooding, Odle said she subsequently sent out over 200 applications to workplaces and attended several interviews, but received no “call backs”, throwing her into a state of depression.

“After everything I have accomplished, after as far as I have come, and I can’t even get a job. So I was forced then to obviously start my own practice. I have learned to trust in God. Even when I didn’t know where to turn, he always had an answer for me.”

Odle served as Accessibility Advisor for Future Barbados where through a five-month contract with the Prime Minister’s office, she worked with a group of young people to come up with different ideas to make Barbados a better place to grow, live, and work.

Following that brief stint, Odle was called to serve on the National Advisory Committee to Improve the Lives of Persons with Disabilities.

“For me that felt as though it was going with my goals to continue advocating for the rights of persons with disabilities. The mandate was to propose legislation and policies to improve the lives of persons with disabilities.

“And as we met with over 60 entities, meeting with persons to get their ideas to tell them about the rights that we have under the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, I knew that we are now just one step closer towards my dream of having an inclusive Barbados,”  she said.

“Now the tenure of that committee is coming to an end and honestly I don’t know what is going to be next for me,” she told the audience. “But I will continue to trust that God has something greater or something brighter.”

The This is My Story lecture was held under the patronage of Special Envoy for Persons with Disabilities Roslyn Hurley. 

anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb