2002 Mary P. Oenslager Scholastic Achievement Awards

MARIYAM CEMENTWALA of Bakersfield, CA, was born in India and diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa a few months after her birth. Her parents moved the family from India to the United States when she was 7 years old to seek a better education for their daughter. It wasn't until high school that she discovered RFB&D.

"RFB&D's recorded textbooks have been literally a godsend to me in my studies," she says. "I cannot overemphasize the importance of RFB&D in my life. As someone who did not learn Braille (her parents and teachers steered her away from it) until age 19, I would have been unable to read independently without the services of RFB&D."

Her high school's class salutatorian, Cementwala won a merit-based full Regents' Scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley. There, she earned a degree in political science with a minor in English and a 3.7 grade point average. A dean's list student and published author, she received numerous scholarships.

As a leader in both the California and National Associations of Blind Students, she has been a lobbyist to the US Congress for legislation concerning people who are blind and states that her advocacy experiences have confirmed her desire to be a lawyer. Through the Berkeley Washington Program, she became a research consultant for the World Bank's Disability and Development Thematic Group, and she has researched international disability law and how it has been implemented in India.

Cementwala earned one of 12 graduate-level national scholarships awarded through the US-Ireland Alliance and is presently completing a master's of law degree in human rights law from the National University of Galway, Ireland. Thereafter, she plans to enroll in law school.

TIFFANY MEDINA of Los Altos Hills, CA, has always had "an amazingly supportive group of family and friends. They made sure that blindness never impeded my understanding of how the world works," she says.

Medina's mother played an important role in her schooling - reading to her every night. In sixth grade, Medina's teacher handed her a recorded textbook from what was then Recording for the Blind®. "At the end of the day, I ran to the car to show my mom. With a dawning expression of relief, she took the cassettes in hand. She could already start to feel the healing of her strained voice," Medina recalls.

When Medina enrolled in Williams College in Williamstown, MA, she found no pre-existing policy regarding disability services. "If it weren't for the textbooks I ordered from RFB&D, I never would have been able to stay. With RFB&D as our safety net, the deans' office and I were able to implement a much more organized, efficacious system for students who are blind who will attend Williams in the future," she says.

Medina graduated from Williams College with a degree in psychology and a 3.75 grade point average. While there, she worked in special education, served as a teacher's assistant at the California School for the Blind and directed/produced a joint Williams College/community production of Godspell. A dean's list student, she captured awards from numerous organizations.

Medina is now at Pennsylvania State University pursuing a PhD in clinical psychology. She aspires to work with adults and children who have psychological disorders and/or disabilities.

Los Gatos, CA, resident SHANNON RAMSAY states, "Despite the many difficulties I have encountered as a young woman who is blind, I have developed the approach of asking myself how I can achieve my goals, and not asking myself if I can reach them."

As one example, Ramsay invented and received a patent for a handheld unit for people who are deaf and blind. The device picks up human speech, processes it through a transmission unit, and presents it to a user on a miniature Braille display in a phonetic Braille code, which she also developed.

Audio textbooks from Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic helped Ramsay since she was in elementary school.

Ramsay credits RFB&D with "saving" her while she was a student at Stanford University, particularly by providing recordings of works by Plato and Aristotle along with theological texts. She graduated from Stanford with a major in political science, a minor in German and a 3.2 grade point average. She was a tutor for a reading program for students with dyslexia and a mentor with a program for at-risk middle-school girls in East Palo Alto, among other activities. Her volunteer work has garnered numerous honors.

Ramsay became the first person who was blind to take part in the Stanford in Washington program, where she held a full-time internship with Senator Tom Harkin.She also was an intern for the US State Department of Civil Rights. She is currently studying public interest and international law at the University of California at Davis Law School.