I am one of the women with disabilities selected in Osun State by the Osun State Government to benefit from the UNESCO REF VOICE Professional Initiative, commissioned under the Educational Financial Facility Scheme. I am Deaf, and my life’s work has been to prove that every learner can learn, and that difference is not deficiency. Through environmental health, psychology, public health education and a doctorate in special education, I have carried that conviction into classrooms that too often overlooked the very children I was trained to serve, children who, like me, experience the world differently. I am still on this journey, and the VOICE Initiative is honouring that conviction at every stage. It is rigorous, dignified and impeccably administered, and it measures me by my capability, never by my condition. Each module equips me further to open doors for the next learner who has been told that the door is closed.
