Success - seeing her is believing

Ruwini JAYAWARDANA

She is quite a jovial person once you get to know her. Speaking with her is engaging and listening to her sing is a delight. While chatting with her about her day-to-day life incidents and achievements you would not have imagined that Melanie Stephens is completely blind. Yet despite her handicap the youth has come along a less traveled path to win over life.

She says that the first signs of her sight problems occurred when she was six years old. Her class teacher realised that she had problems reading the letters written on the blackboard.

“My parents suffered from a lot of family problems. Therefore they did not make any effort to get me the medical treatment which could have saved my sight. Parental negligence at an early age is one of the most unfortunate situations in a child’s life,” Stephens says dubbing herself as ‘twice disabled’ because she is from a broken home.

Stephens’s world plunged into darkness by the time she was 11 when she lost complete vision due to high pressure in her eyes damaging her optic nerve permanently. She had even contemplated suicide till her faith in god shone like a beacon, lightening up her tragic plight.

A special award

“He gave my life back to me. My Ophthalmologist Dr Zita Subasinghe sent me to the School for the Blind in Ratmalana. I met many blind children there. This reformed my thinking pattern because most of them have been born without sight while I had the opportunity to see the world during the early stages of my childhood.

This thought gave me strength. I dedicated myself to learning Braille and learnt it faster than most of the children in my class. Even while walking to the classroom I used to be a step ahead of the rest of the students in my batch. It is not that I wanted to surpass them. I wanted to do everything to the best of my ability. I believe this nature came about because I was someone who had been born with near perfect sight,” she explained.

An old girl of Good Shepherd Convent, Nayakakanda, Stephens has many accolades to her name. Despite her disability or perhaps because of it she had aimed high and seem to have held every position of note raging from being the head of the school debating team, leader of the girl guides, sports captain and president of the English society to head prefect. She was the school’s best athlete during her time winning the championship for three consecutive years. She had bagged three gold medals, six silver medals and three bronze medals at national tournaments. She had also won sixth place in the inaugural mercantile chess tournament in 1999, taking part in the event as its only visually handicapped contestant. She had to play against the previous year’s champion in her first match and put on a tough fight for nearly three hours. This impressed the judges so much that they presented her with a special award.

A strong will

Not limiting herself to sports alone the multitalented youth has also shown her flair for writing by composing songs, Christian hymns, music tracks, poems and essays. She even won first place at an all island short story competition organised by the Social Services Department in 1995 for her story titled ‘Tears of Love.’

“The story is about overcoming difficulties brought about by the changes in the world. Drugs and romance play a central role in the story,” said Stephens who is also an ardent lover of music and had played the piano and sang in a choir. She notes that much like ‘Twelfth Night’s Duke Orsino, music is the ‘food of love’ for her too. Her commitment and strong will is an example to others in the society whose determination wavers while faced with trivial matters. She is someone who did not let fate mould her future.

She says, “Many people tried to let me down. I believe that a person can try to destroy another person’s happiness but they cannot diminish the truth. Be strong for yourself. Do not worry about false accusations.

Think about what you have achieved in life to reach the position that you are in today. Overcome these hurdles and be satisfied with what you have because there are plenty of people in this world who do not have the comforts that you have but are still surviving on small pleasures. If they can be happy with the little that they have why cannot you too be satisfied with what you have?”

Healing the minds

These are some of the ideas that she uses in her motivational speeches to help disabled people face life with optimism. She says that disabled people too perform as well as their counterparts.

She does not believe in giving money or food as a sign of sympathy to people with disability. Kindness is what is needed to heal their minds and help them become significant contributors in their chosen fields.

“A majority of people turn a blind eye on disabled children. Some even ill treat them. Only a handful of disabled children have gotten the love of their parents but once the parents become old and feeble it is their blind children who take them under their wings. Many of my blind friends have experienced this. I have a few blind friends from abroad who have been abandoned by their parents because of their disabilities,” she revealed a bitter truth in the society.

Stephens is employed at the AIA Insurance Lanka PLC for four year as a Junior Executive. She had been trained at the Sri Lanka Federation of the Visually Handicapped in IT and telephone operation as a teenager. The amicable manner in which she deals with customers while handling over 1,500 calls a day won her the title of the Best Telephone Operator of the Year presented by the Lions Club in 2007. She was selected out of 158 companies across the island.

Standing on her own

“The first lesson that we were taught was that we are the ones who give the first and last impression of the company to our clients. It seems like an easy task on the surface but it is tough and tiring. Sometimes you have to handle tricky situations,” she noted.

She has been staying at the Salvation Army Girls Hostel for a long span and is fondly known as ‘Mela’ among the hostellers. Here she has managed to create a little abode for herself with her friends, doing her laundry, ironing and keeping her room tidy all by herself.

“One of my hostel mates once wanted to borrow something from me. She was amazed to see how tidily I keep my cupboard. Later she told me that she too learnt how to arrange her items neatly from me. I have heard similar comments from my friends,” she added.

Stephens remembers Doreen Sebastian Pullai with gratitude for providing love and shelter for her during her childhood. She also expresses her thanks to Dr Zita Subasinghe and Ceylon Bible Society General Secretary and Methodist College former Vice Principal Lakshini Fernando for their constant support. Having visited countries like Sweden, Switzerland and France for youth exchange leadership training programmes Stephens says she was motivated to stand on her own feet.

“I felt proud about my achievements because I earned all this due to my effort. There are only a few opportunities in Sri Lanka for disabled people to excel,” she said. Stephens’s future plans include inspiring many more visually challenged people through rehabilitation programmes. She also hopes to fly to a foreign country and make use of the opportunities which come her way to reach out to many others facing similar situations.