HB: I grew up with stories of resisting oppression. SK: In your book, you reflect on the similarities between Eritrea’s battle for independence and your own battles “as a Deafblind girl in a sighted, hearing world.” How did your family’s experiences with war and death impact the way in which you approach your life? I use a combination of screen reading technology, a braille computer, and a laptop. Haben Girma: Screenreading software converts graphical information on screen, whether a laptop or smart phone, to speech or digital braille. Sam Kolitch: What technology enables you to answer my questions in this format? Her memoir, Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law, details her life’s defining moments: the summers she spent in Eritrea and Ethiopia with her family, the challenges she faced at Harvard Law School, and the conversation she had with President Obama while celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 2015.
Girma was awarded the Heller Keller Achievement Award in 2018, named a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient in 2016, and featured in Time100 Talks in 2020.
In 2013, she was named a White House Champion of Change by President Obama, and she has been honored by President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Chancellor Angel Merkel for her tireless efforts to advance disability justice. Haben Girma, the first Deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School, is a human rights lawyer and disability rights advocate.
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