Annicia Gayle-Geddes: The change agent

SHE’S tenacious and purpose-driven and she’s also helping to lead the charge for equal human rights for people with disabilities.

An old girl of The Queen’s School, Annicia Gayle-Geddes, 35, told All Woman that it was an inter-club sixth form association meeting that piqued her interest in the disabled.

“I attended the sixth form association meeting at Jamaica College and met Damian McLean who was attending Calabar at the time. After speaking with him and he walked off, I realised he had a cane. I later learnt, too, that he was blind. I never even knew what it meant to have a disability,” she said.

A few years later, as fate would have it, while attending the University of the West Indies (UWI), Gayle-Geddes crossed paths with McLean and received a baptism into disability studies.

“I became fast friends with him and learned about the challenges he experienced as a student with a disability at the university. I also met Senator Floyd Morris, and through my interactions it became a baptism into disability studies.”

And so Gayle-Geddes, who holds a bachelor of science degree in political science and public administration, pursued a doctorate in social policy in order to do something that would be meaningful and impact public policy in terms of the long-term planning and development of her country.

She has published her book Disability and Inequality: Socioeconomic Imperatives and Public Policy in Jamaica as a tool which provides service providers and policymakers with information on planning in a more holistic way.

“My mother had me at age 16 and I became the ninth child to my grandparents. Based on my experiences and access to education, this book is a melting pot of all those experiences,” she said. “These experiences make me what I am today. You are the primary contributor to the destiny you want to create.”

Gayle-Geddes has been the programme manager for the poverty reduction co-ordinating unit at the Planning Institute of Jamaica since December 2013.

The book, she said, has been motivated by persons with disabilities.

“It presents their lived experiences and looks at the socio-cultural environment within which persons with disabilities experience the disablement of stigma and discrimination, and it quantifies education and training as well as labour market situations for persons with disabilities of the working age, compared with persons without disabilities,” she said.

According to Gayle-Geddes, the book, which will be launched on March 31 at UWI’s Faculty of Law, will give people a better understanding of the infrastructural barriers that a person with disabilities experiences.

Gayle-Geddes said through working on the book she has met people from the disabled community who had a positive effect on her life. This has made her more committed to the work, which she sees as a critical tool of advocacy that will strengthen the quality of life for the disabled.

She also considers herself a change agent and lives by Mahatma Gandhi’s quote, to be the change you want to see.

“I try to see issues around me and find ways to make society a better place,” she said.