A visually impaired student in Abu Dhabi has spoken of her journey from living in denial to becoming an advocate for change and accessibility.
Price Maccarthy, 22, from Ghana, has no vision in one eye and only partial sight in the other. Her vision has been impaired since she was 7, but she often hid her disability from others.
On Monday, she graduated in legal studies and was happy to be a part of the New York University Abu Dhabi commencement ceremony.
She said coming to Abu Dhabi for university changed her life.
When I started at NYUAD, I was just in denial that I had a disability because my parents told me that it was something I had to hide
Price Maccarthy
Ms Maccarthy said she was studying aerospace engineering in Ghana when she had to undergo surgery at the age of 16 to improve her vision.
“At that time, the vision in my other eye was fluctuating and the doctors were trying to stabilise it, but it did not work,” she said.
She had to take time off for the surgery, missed some exams and was asked to repeat the year at the university.
Ms Maccarthy felt dejected at the thought of repeating the year and decided to move to Abu Dhabi to study for a bachelor's degree in legal studies, with the goal of later studying for a doctorate in the field.
“When I started at NYUAD, I was just in denial that I had a disability because my parents told me that it was something I had to hide,” said Ms Maccarthy.
“A friend of mine saw me struggling, tripping, falling and having blackouts so she took me to the Moses Centre office, a centre for accessibility and accommodation at NYUAD.”
During the pandemic, her eyesight deteriorated further and the university had to provide her with a walking stick.
Several people on campus reached out and told her about different ways she could seek help or advice.
It was then that she realised that although departments were trying to help students, the students themselves were unaware of what was being offered to them.
“I decided to take matters into my own hands. I thought what better way to do it than through joining the student government?” said Ms Maccarthy.
The student government is a student-led organisation at the university that serves the student body.
Ms Maccarthy was elected to the position of chairwoman of the diversity committee.
“It was the beginning of my accessibility advocacy journey. For the first time in my life, it felt like, instead of waiting for departments to reach out to me and ask me how they could be accessible, I could set up meetings with people in administration and say, 'these are some things I noticed and this is how you could help',” she said.
“During the pandemic, the university changed entry and exit routes but that meant the routes that visually impaired students had memorised or how they went about navigating the campus changed significantly.”
At that time, students were asked to collect deliveries in the evening from a different entrance than usual.
But visually impaired people were not used to this. So, Ms Maccarthy ensured that students who had vision problems were allowed to receive deliveries from the usual entry point.
She also had menu placards at a university cafeteria replaced with QR codes to make it easier for students to know food options.
Usually, in such cases, the QR code tactile indicator works by placing a Braille sticker over the QR Code that helps people with limited eyesight and they know what to order. Before the new system was brought in, students with vision problems had to depend on others to read out the menu to them.
She also focused on making university events more accessible by asking others to remove disability-related barriers.
Ms Maccarthy said there were areas that all universities could focus on to make campus life easier for students with disabilities.
Universities should focus on mobility training which can help people with disabilities get acquainted with their environment, teaching them the routes to classrooms.
She said people focused on creating awareness and educating others, but not enough time was spent focusing on the needs of disabled people.
“It's mostly about education for the greater public, so that they are not ignorant about certain things, or what to say or what not to say.”
NYUAD commencement ceremony 2022 - in pictures
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Pakistan: Sarfraz (c), Hafeez, Imam, Azhar, Sohail, Shafiq, Azam, Saad, Yasir, Asif, Abbas, Hassan, Afridi, Ashraf, Hamza
New Zealand: Williamson (c), Blundell, Boult, De Grandhomme, Henry, Latham, Nicholls, Ajaz, Raval, Sodhi, Somerville, Southee, Taylor, Wagner
Umpires: Bruce Oxerford (AUS) and Ian Gould (ENG); TV umpire: Paul Reiffel (AUS); Match referee: David Boon (AUS)
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Kathryn Hawkes of House of Hawkes on being a good guest (because we’ve all had bad ones)
- Arrive with a thank you gift, or make sure you have one for your host by the time you leave.
- Offer to buy groceries, cook them a meal or take your hosts out for dinner.
- Help out around the house.
- Entertain yourself so that your hosts don’t feel that they constantly need to.
- Leave no trace of your stay – if you’ve borrowed a book, return it to where you found it.
- Offer to strip the bed before you go.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The biog
Year of birth: 1988
Place of birth: Baghdad
Education: PhD student and co-researcher at Greifswald University, Germany
Hobbies: Ping Pong, swimming, reading
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Director: Jon M Chu
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Rating: 4/5
