Deaf-Blind Harvard Law Grad Learning To... Surf?

First Harvard Law... then surfing.

Photo by Shalom Jacobovitz

Photo by Shalom Jacobovitz

At some point, someone probably told Haben Girma that a deaf-blind woman couldn’t graduate from Harvard Law. Or become a Skadden Fellow working with Disability Rights Advocates. Or speak at the White House. Or that she couldn’t find a way to use technology to successfully work with her clients. Or find herself on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. So it’s not wise to bet against her, but it just seems like surfing is one of those things where you’d want to be able to see and/or hear what’s going on around you. I mean… one of the best surfers in the world got her damn arm eaten off by a shark!

But, apparently despite the ever-present fear of shark-induced mangling, Girma’s still aiming to scratch surfing off the list of activities people tell her she can’t do:

“I’m also deaf-blind, so the way I learn and approach the world is slightly different, so I need to think up alternative techniques for accessing information,” Girma explained.

She said her goal in activities like surfing is to learn as much as she can, because success comes after a lot of failure.

“I’ve been preparing for surf lessons by thinking about all the different ways people can communicate without using their voices or using hearing or vision,” she said. “So thinking about tactile ways to communicate different surfing positions, getting familiar with surfboards and getting familiar with the surf communicate.”

I’m assuming this is an elaborate set-up where she has to beat some rich kid and conquer Waimea Bay to save a community center for some disabled kids as part of her DRA work.

I hear she also plays a mean pinball.

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Deaf-Blind Graduate of Harvard Law School, White House Honoree Challenges Self and Learns to Surf in San Diego [NBC San Diego]

Earlier: Congratulations to the 2013 Skadden Fellows
Today’s Tech: How A Deaf-Blind Lawyer Uses Technology To Represent Her Disabled Clients
30 Under 30: The Top Young Lawyers And Policymakers (2016)

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