Sitting in class one day, six-year-old Leroy Phillips suddenly realised that he could not see and as his child’s mind battled to understand this tragic turn of events, his teacher on account of him not participating in class sent him home.
He stumbled out of the classroom but could not find the school’s gate; he felt he was “wandering around in a circle.” Were it not for his cousin who attended the same school, getting home that day may just have proven impossible.
That day triggered a world of darkness for the young boy who for some years struggled to understand why he could not see and refused to give up all the activities he had been involved in, while he had his sight.
Over the years since then he has been exposed to the worst of people and the best of them. Transportation for years has been a struggle and many times it was difficult to get work done “but I propelled myself.”
That refusal to give up has propelled the now 24-year-old Phillips into the limelight; he is one of the 60 young people from across the Commonwealth who have been recognized as exceptional leaders in their communities and have won the Queen’s Young Leaders Award.
A week in one of the most enchanting cities in the world—London—and an opportunity to meet Queen Elizabeth, who will be presenting the awards, are all icing on the cake for Phillips. He believes the real prize is his achievement being used by other youths living with disabilities.
“I feel elated about winning the award and I know very few people get to meet the Queen,” he told the Sunday Stabroek in a recent interview.
He will travel to London in June, after which he will be tutored by personnel from Cambridge University via the internet to hone his skills towards making him a better youth advocate leader. The training will last for 12 months.
He was nominated for the award by the Leonard Cheshire Disability Young Voices London; he is the president of the organisation’s Georgetown chapter. Through the organisation he has also attended conferences in Kenya and Belgium.
Throughout his young years, Phillips was never shy to try new things and today he is a part-time producer/broadcaster at the National Communications Network (NCN) radio. His biggest programme ‘Reach and Touch’ is aired on the Voice of Guyana on Sundays at 10.30 am. He uses this programme as an empowering tool for persons with disabilities and educates them about their rights under the Disability Act. He targets young people who are struggling to come to grips with their disability, teaching them about how they could exercise their rights and ensuring that they are not violated.
Phillips is a voice for the disabled and it is a responsibility he takes seriously which could see him sometimes even speaking to himself as he continues to learn as he prepares the weekly programmes. While being a part-time broadcaster is a great achievement, Phillips said becoming part of the blind cricket team was really what kickstarted a change in his life.
‘Couldn’t explain the blindness’
There is a lot of his earlier years that Phillips does not remember but he does recall running through the streets, even though he was blind, which resulted in him cutting and bruising himself.
On the day when life changed for him forever, Phillips said, he just could not explain to his teacher that he could not see.
“As a six-year-old I did not know what blindness was,” he stated and even after he arrived home he did not immediately tell his grandmother what was wrong.
“I remembered she gave me a piece of icicle and it fell and instead of looking for it with my eyes I fell to my knees and was searching for it with the palms of my hands and she asked me what was wrong,” Phillips recalled.
His alarmed grandmother, Lurlene Phillips, quickly rushed him to the hospital where he was admitted and remained hospitalized for one month. By that time his eyes were swollen and he was experiencing excruciating pain; he saw doctor after doctor and none could diagnose what was wrong with his eyes.
While it has not been medically confirmed, Phillips and his family believe that he lost his sight as a result of the head traumas he sustained owing to constantly falling as a child. He recalled that their home had inside stairs and because of how the staircase was shaped he would constantly fall when manoeuvring it.
“I would fall many times and then because of how the wall was situated I would sometimes hit my head,” he said adding “and yes I would cry, but no I was never taken to the hospital,” he said when further probed.
Following his release from the hospital, Phillips became a student at the Blind Unit, which was located in the compound of the St Roses High School. His grandmother, whom he described as his counsellor, never gave up. He recalled her “doing all the running around” and it was she who made contact with the Guyana Society for the Blind.
He was among the first batch of blind students to write the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) last year through the society. He gained passes in five subjects and is preparing to write to others later this year with the aim of
reading for a degree in communication at the University of Guyana.
It was in 2007 that a friend prodded him to take advantage of a broadcasting training programme at NCN following which he was offered a spot as a freelancer, and he has never looked back since.
“Very easy, very cool,” was how he described working at NCN but he quickly added that it can “be challenging at times when things are not going your way like waiting on an operator to edit stuff for you and they are busy.”
However, he is learning to edit his programmes, which include music programmes, and soon would not have to wait to get his work done.
Blind cricket
Blind cricket was never something that interested Phillips, as at one point he felt the players were taken advantage of, but after being “compelled” to get involved by his friends he has not regretted the decision.
He holds the game out as creating opportunities for him, since before he described himself as a “shut in”. It was after he started playing cricket that he felt brave enough to try out as a broadcaster at NCN.
Mere days after he held a bat and ball as a blind individual, Phillips was picked on the team for a tournament in Barbados. That was the first time he left Guyana and since then he has travelled to other Caribbean countries to participate. And if the West Indian Cricket Board was not going through a financial crisis he would have toured South Africa with the rest of the blind cricket teams in the world where a tournament was held. Phillips was picked on the West Indies Blind Cricket Team.
His success in the game instilled a lot of confidence in him, but Phillips said it is from the cricket team that he derives much support; he described the members as a family. He said Ganesh Singh, who is known for championing the cause of the blind and those who are disabled and was instrumental in starting the CSEC programme, was someone he has learnt a lot from. Singh is also a member of the cricket team.
The future
Come June, Phillips’s young aunt will accompany him on the trip as he is allowed one companion and because he knows it is going to be a hectic week and is taking someone whom he knows will be able to assist him and who would also enjoy the aesthetic of London.
He plans to use the award to motivate other young people since he wants to be part of the changing process for people with disabilities. This year’s winners are between the ages of 18 and 29.
As he looks to the future, Phillips said a major concern for people living with disabilities is education and he strongly advocated for them to be given an opportunity to continue their education past the primary stage. He encourages the young that the Disability Act is there to protect their rights even though he admitted it will still take some time before any real impact could be felt under the act.
Employment, he said, remains a major challenge as many workplaces are not friendly towards disabled persons while pointing out that for persons with disabilities advocating is a lifelong process.
“Businesses need to make their buildings friendlier towards people with disabilities because we don’t want to be fetched or led around the place like babies, we want to be independent,” he said.
He will soon be knocking on the door of Education Minister Priya Manickchand as he said he wants to part of a programme that helps young blind children in the interior. He believes it is time for them to have access to the same opportunities as children living on the coast.
