1. Haben Girma was born on July 29,1988 and is an American disability rights advocate, and the first deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School.
20 Facts About Haben Girma
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Haben Girma's father Girma Kidane Adgoy was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and her mother Saba Gebreyesus was born in Asmara.
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Haben Girma's mother fled the Province of Eritrea to Sudan among many other Ethiopian refugees in 1983 during the Eritrean War of Independence and Ethiopian Civil War.
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Haben Girma's mother met her father, who was born and raised in Addis Ababa, in California.
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Haben Girma's parents are fluent in three languages; Tigrinya, Amharic, and English.
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Haben Girma lost her vision and hearing as a result of an unknown progressive condition beginning in early childhood.
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Haben Girma graduated from Skyline High School, a mainstream public school, in 2006.
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At the age of 15, Haben Girma traveled to Mali to do volunteer work, building schools with buildOn.
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Haben Girma then became the first deafblind student to attend and graduate from Harvard Law School, earning her JD in 2013.
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In 2013, Haben Girma joined Disability Rights Advocates in Berkeley, California as a Skadden Fellow.
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Haben Girma worked there from 2015 to 2016 as a staff attorney, working on behalf of people with disabilities.
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Haben Girma says she became a lawyer in part to help increase access to books and other digital information for persons with disabilities.
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Haben Girma confronted TED for not readily providing captions for all of their recorded TEDx talks, including her own.
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In January 2015, Haben Girma was appointed to the national board of trustees for the Helen Keller Services for the Blind.
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On July 20,2015, Haben Girma met with US President Barack Obama at the White House to highlight the importance of accessible technology.
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Haben Girma provided introductory remarks on the occasion, the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
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In June 2016, Haben Girma gave a talk on accessible design at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference.
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In 2018, The Washington Post published an op-ed by Haben Girma directed at the Texas State Board of Education, which had voted to remove Helen Keller from the social studies curriculum.
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Haben Girma enjoys participating in physical activities including surfing, rock climbing, kayaking, cycling, and dancing.
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Haben Girma was matched with her first dog, a German Shepherd named Maxine, by The Seeing Eye in 2009.