Strong & Powerful Women: Helen Keller
Women's month, a month where here in South Africa we celebrate women of all races and cultures all over the world, women who fought for what we have today, women who weren't afraid of speaking out, and women who fought for a better future. For the remaining days of this month, I think it's important to recognize these women and understand their struggle.
Helen Keller is the first person we are going to learn about. This woman is the true definition of a strong and bold woman.
In 1880, June 27, in Tuscumbia Alabama, Helen Keller was born. Helen Keller was a normal happy baby, who lived on a farm called Ivy Green with her mother Katherine Adams Keller, Arthur H. Keller, and her 4 siblings.
Unfortunately, when Helen was one and half years old, tragedy struck, she got severely sick, she suffered from a very high fever and headaches and eventually lost her hearing and sight. Her parents were devastated just as any loving parents would. As the years went by the struggle got worse for Helen because she was unable to communicate with the people around her. She would obviously throw tantrums and cry because of her frustrations about the situation.
It was then that Annie Sullivan was introduced to Helen, but before that, Annie Sullivan was a former student from the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston and she herself was blind at one point. But she ended up getting surgery for blindness, and was able to regain her eyesight. With Annie's help, Helen was able to learn words and learn how to read. Helen was then able to read books in Braille, which is a type of reading system where the letters are made of little bumps on a page.
Sarah Fuller, she helped Helen how to say words! With Sarah's help, she was able to communicate verbally with other people and with that out of the way Helen then attended Radcliffe Collage for women and being the bright woman that she was, she ended up graduating with honours.
In 1890, Helen started attending speech classes at the Horace School for the deaf in Boston and then the Wright School for the Deaf in New York City where she studied her regular academic subjects.
It was then that she started making a difference in this world when she was appointed counsellor of international relations for the American Foundation of Overseas Blind. She then had to travel to 35 different countries on 5 continents, giving speeches and raising money for the organization including the American Federation for the Blind. Helen also visited veterans who were blinded in combat and encouraged them not to give up and have hope. It is said that she even testified before Congress advocating to improve the welfare of blind people.
In addition to this, Helen wrote numerous articles for the Ladies' Home Journal which was a magazine at the time. It was a few years later that all the articles Helen wrote would be put together and published in a book called The Story of My Life and in 1908, she published yet another book called The World I Live In.
Helen Keller should be a huge inspiration to all for everything that she did and was for the world. She showed the world that even though she had lost her sight and hearing that anything is possible if you have the determination and work really hard. She made sure that although she had limitations that it would not stop her from reaching for the stars, making her the amazing inspiration that she is today!
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