If you don’t notice the cane, eight-year-old Mekyla Belgrave comes across as cute little miss who loves sunglasses, and there is nothing about her engaging presence and constant chatter either which would give away the fact that she is blind.
In fact both of the child’s eyes were removed when she was only months old, shortly after she had been diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a form of childhood cancer that starts in immature retinal cells in one or both eyes. This cancer may begin from the time a baby is in the womb and this may have been the case for little Mekyla as she was just four months old when her parents realized that something was wrong with her eyes.
For her age Mekyla comes across as a very intelligent child who is not shy about expressing her opinion, and her mother Celeste Belgrave’s worst fear is that she would not be given the opportunity to fulfil her potential because of her blindness. She is very concerned about her daughter and others like her not being catered for when national examinations are set,