Born and raised on the picturesque island of Mali next to Vanua Levu in Fiji, Jay has lived a life full of love, being the youngest in a family of five children, but one not without its challenges. While she was born with a disability, she was mobile and able to attend school in Vanua Levu. Even though this meant travelling by a small boat between islands twice daily, it was important to Jay who prioritised her education above everything. She recalls being grateful for the progressive and benevolent headteacher who not only allowed her to study there but made provisions for her as Jay was the first student with a disability to attend the school. After finishing high school, Jay was on the verge of achieving what she set out to do, which was beginning her university studies, when in a couple of weeks, the unthinkable happened. What seemed like a small accident at home where she missed a step entering her house, turned out to be something that would leave her bedridden for three years. “My body shut down. I shut down. I felt there was no more hope for my future because I could no longer walk. I was bedridden and completely reliant on my family for support for the first six months.” Stuck within the four walls of her room daily, watching the world go by, it was her mother who supported her out of the deep despair she was in. She lovingly but firmly said to Jay that she “needed to accept this situation” she was in. Acceptance was the only way she would start to recover and progress. That seemed to work on Jay, and she joined her mother in weaving. “Weaving was something that sort of made me forget my problems and accept my situation. It was therapeutic and it was something that my Mum and I did together and made me feel closer to her. Whatever my Mum did, she always shared it with me, so at least at the end of the day we felt useful and knew we had a purpose.” It was Jay’s older brother, however, who saw that Jay needed a change in environment to recover faster. A move to Nadi in Viti Levu, the other main island in Fiji, turned out to be exactly what Jay needed. There, she was able to gain mobility after using a more natural pathway to recovery. She was even able to continue weaving and, with support from her brother, began selling her products to Nadi’s booming tourism industry. But true self-actualisation and empowerment did not come until one day when she was watching TV and what she saw changed the course of her life. She saw Fiji welcoming its first Paralympian, Iliesa Delana, who just won a gold medal, with a street parade. People were cheering because he had done the country proud. “I had never seen anything like it. Then, I also saw a group of people with banners saying ‘disability rights matter’ on the street. I was taken aback. I never knew groups like this existed.” Jay went on to join this community of activists and is now part of both disability rights and LGBTQIA+ movements. She has finished her tertiary studies where she also headed the student council and thrived in a leadership role and now works at a national centre for people with disabilities where she is the officer in charge of doing assessments that aims to reduce risks to people with disabilities during disasters. She is a proud Indigenous disability rights activist from the LGBTQIA+ community who is also a person of faith. She shares, “At times, I am asked by my colleagues, do you even go to church? Do you even pray? I say, “why do you ask me such questions?” They say, “because oftentimes we see you talking about human rights”, and to that, I say “well yes, I am passionate about my advocacy because I always feel for the most vulnerable in our society. That doesn’t mean that I don’t value my culture and tradition, my religion.
