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thank you very much the first part is
over ladies and gentlemen good afternoon
I wanted today to share with you my
experience of living with blindness to
hopefully send a positive message to
those with special needs and their
families and employers who think that
having a disability is the end of the
world it is it’s just the start of
having great fun with endless challenges
I was born with a degenerating disease
of the retina causing blindness I
started with a little bit of vision
through which I tried to race with time
to achieve everything that I’m not be
able to achieve later so I did horse
riding I did cycling I did skiing I did
mountaineering I did driving everything
that I could home was the absolute
comfort zone for me headed by my great
father farruko hamid ali luck man and
home was the absolute comfort zone for
me on the other hand mainstream
schooling that was in Jeddah and Saudi
Arabia where the absolute devil a
nightmare I remember crying every
morning before going to school and
crying when I got back from school I
hated waking up in the mornings due to
school suffering
in 1984 i remembered i moved to a school
close to home to our new home and the
first class was mathematics the teacher
wrote questions on the board and asked
us to answer when my turn came i got up
and told him i cannot see them and he
laughed and he said how could you not
see the board being and sitting in the
first row so he said why don’t you come
hang on the blank blackboard so that you
could be so close to it and can read it
and obviously the entire class burst
into a big laugh and I by bus into a big
cry inside and the heart sometimes cries
before the eye and as they say in Arabic
sometimes there is there’s a famous
point that says you owe me Oh Tony liebe
Delhi asha cotton well you know Tasha
hook up the line near Hannah and this is
very true for us the blind because our
imagine from the example I told you
there’s so many imagine you could you
could see how is the attitude of mature
teachers toward me and I can give it
your imagination to think how was the
attitude of kids and teenagers towards
me I despite all that I finished school
with flying colors together with many mo
awards such as the best mathematics
student the best musician and all around
student the next stage was University
and i will tell you how I moved from
University the job and back to
university in continuation for my love
for challenges I chose the hardest
subject and the hardest university in
Europe I opted to do mathematics at
Imperial College of Science and
Technology
london which is one of the hardest
colleges despite all the challenges and
despite that Imperial and mathematics
continue to challenge fully sighted
people I came out of Imperial after only
three years with an honours degree in
mathematics I moved on from there to do
a master’s in computing at the
university of kent at canterbury before
i got my first job I was hired by
Unilever from the UK and posted to Jetta
then do by Unilever is one of the
largest 500 companies in the world and
has over 300,000 employees it was a
great employer but unfortunately the
work required a lot of visual skills and
many traveling on going travels every
week to different cities and countries
around the world I remember after a
particular market visit abu dhabi city i
came back home with a decision to change
career i decided to do law and the
choice of law was for obvious reasons
it’s a profession that does not rely so
much on vision plus it runs very long
back in the lock man family I chose to
do low at Kent University again and
because i had finished an honours degree
from ok and worked for an international
company in the english language for few
years i was offered to do the LLB degree
in two years after extremely successful
two years as you know low read in terms
of reading i used everybody i could i
borrowed the eyes of family friends
colleagues to read for me and record for
me and after those very painful two
years once again i completed my degree
it was then the first job as a blind
lawyer less than your career my first
job was with an international company in
London called Richards Butler they tried
very hard to accommodate me and provide
me with all the required facilities is
what it was great to be honest but the
big problem was commuting to London I
used to leave at about seven a.m. in the
morning of whites totally dark raining
and snowing catch a train and then
change to another train or more before I
got to the office was during rush hours
extremely crowded no seats people are
running pushing me stepping on my cane
I’ll show you an example for example I
use this cane to walk it feels what’s
what’s in front of me and people would
come and just step of over it and break
it into two another example I was at the
train station one day and I was trying
to walk very fast I’m confident like
like other commuters do and somebody
suddenly pulls me from the back of my
jacket and before I react she told me
you were just about to phone in the
track of the train I would leave office
at about seven ave about 5pm it’s
already dark in the winter and the
entire ordeal would start again after
that I decided to return to the by where
I got the job with a company called al
tamimi encompass the largest Arab law
firm the world today life was much
easier full-time driver full-time
secretary supportive colleagues
relations etc but maybe I fancied a
bigger challenge before I tell you about
that challenge I will tell you something
that I’m over often asked how did I
combine the two extremes of mathematics
on one hand and low on the other hand
and
to be honest I don’t consider it to
extremes both matse law require very
sharp minds and high levels of logic
accuracy and meticulousness maybe the
difference in mathematics one plus one
equals two in law I think one plus one
equals whatever a smart lawyer wants it
to be so if it could be 0 or 2 or 11
that’s that’s up to us the fiddle
numbers or the questions okay returning
to Yemen I left heaven with my family as
a kid giggling to economic and political
constraints imposed by the old communist
party which you all know about I could
have stayed in Dubai but I had the
stains relating to my career for example
in Dubai being a non-local I could not
open my own office and I could not get
license to appear before the court so I
thought okay I’m not local terrorists go
back to Yemen be a full local it was
completely a new environment to me in
Yemen I had zero knowledge of the of the
environment of the business of the laws
I was discouraged to open an office 2004
how will you read how will you go to
court and how will you compete with
lawyers who’ve been practicing for
decades in Yemen to be honest I didn’t
give a damn I put my foot down put my
socks up and did it I up and look my
legal in early 2004 I started with one
secretary and I took every work that
came through the door including
translations and interpretations for the
World Bank and other embassies she used
to record for me and I would listen to
the tape and type the responses on my
special laptop very often I stated but
one am in the office came back home to
have a bite and continued again work
till the morning the legal market was
very
very difficult in Yemen information is
very limited and courts are just as bad
and messy as local part markets I’m not
kidding the oven Bar Association refused
to license me for many years for no
reason lawyers from family and friends
formed the lobby against me not to be
licensed they told me once if we license
you you will compete with us on all of
all the international work and work
relating to oil and gas companies so I
said okay fine I continued without a
license in 2006 and only two years after
establishing LACMA legal I was ranked by
an international organization in band
one in Yemen as one of the top three
international lawyers in the country in
2007 I appeared before the first
international court in Stockholm in
Sweden I continued with continued on a
very fast pace and I guess my colleagues
will put something on the overhead
relating to the international
recognitions and testimonies we received
I am happy now that I represent the
biggest international clients in the
world before local and international
courts in Paris London and Sweden right
now to summarize I am really pleased
that I have managed to overcome many of
the challenges of childhood and
adulthood but I tell you very frankly
they never finish every day something
crops up and sometimes their shattering
but other times they are easier to
overcome and in all events I have to
sign up on my feet again I’m very
blessed hamdillah to have great family
supportive friends and social circle
serve circles which helped me very big
deal going
through this life and through their eyes
I still exercise my crazy hobbies such
as horse riding cycling and driving by
the way if anybody wants me to try the
car I’ll be more than happy to do so for
your charge my why my son Mohammed
completes his law degree next summer I
did not impose on him studying law and I
should not impose it on his brothers
mercy and hamza although as a father I
would love it if they follow suit and
together we can continue the great look
my legal for generations to come ladies
and gentlemen when I was young I used to
get embarrassed when somebody would hold
my hand and walk me through social
events I knew that everybody would be
looking at me in a funny way today I
feel very proud and I walk with my head
up through the same events knowing that
the minute I sit down I will impress
everybody and thank you and one last
word when somebody walks me through
devans in Yemen busy demands and
somebody’s what is holding me to sit
somewhere I hear people saying miss Kean
research oh poor guy is his blind and I
say in my heart poor you who think this
you you may see just around you but I
see up to the sky and the sky has no
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