 |
By Carolyn Kissoon & Krishna Maharaj |
June 2003: Steven Maxfaults is regarded by many as a young genius. He has won several awards for academic excellence, a certificate of excellence in bowling, danced at several festivals in New York and acted as Sherlock Holmes in a mystery drama. He recently received a medal for reading more than 70 books in two months.
He is just 13 years old and he is blind.
Maxfaults, whose parents are Trinidadians, was pronounced blind when he was two years old. As he has shown, the disability did not mean the end of the world.
"I would tell anyone to work hard for whatever they want in life and not to let anything, including a disability, stop you," he said in a recent interview..
His parents, Paro and Steve Maxfaults, are originally from Gasparillo. They migrated to the United States 25 years ago.
Maxfaults was born in Brooklyn, New York. At the age of three he was enrolled in the Queens Lighthouse For the Blind. He has fond memories of his early school years because of his teacher.
"I would pick flowers from my grandmother's garden and take to my teacher, who was kind and loving," he recalled.
Two years later, Maxfaults entered the Herman Schreiber Elementary School, where he faced numerous challenges. A para-professional accompanied him to classes on a daily basis. "That is a person who walked with me from class to class and helped me in my classes. Next year I would not have a para because I think I can do everything by myself," Maxfaults explained.
He captured an award for Citizen of the Week for doing acts of kindness by helping students in mathematics. It was while at elementary school that Maxfaults experienced his first taste of stardom. He gave his first public performance at dance festival in which he acted as Abraham Lincoln. He also won the school's spelling bee award for three years in a row. He has won four medals in areas of gymnastics, including floor aerobics, track and field and balance beam.
Maxfaults is adept at Braille writing and printing for the blind, and has done extensive mobility training - the method by which blind people move around.
When he turned eight, he began attending the Saturday Programme at the Manhattan Lighthouse For the Blind. There he got a chance to show off his dancing skills in the National Dance Theatre .
After graduating from the Herman Schreiber Elementary School, Maxfaults transferred to Essence School, where he was elected as the vice-president of his grade. He also placed first in the New City Science Fair in his zonal district.
One of Maxfault's many passions is travelling. He has been to Canada, and several states, including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Florida and Washington DC. He has travelled to Trinidad on several occasions and at age ten he made the trip all by himself. He expects to be back next month.
He is now in the seventh grade and has completed many programmes which have enabled him to use the computer independently.
He wants to become a lawyer. "Because the job is interesting and I want to defend people who deserve to be defended," he said.
The person he admires more than anyone else is his grandmother, Leela Maxfaults, with whom he currently lives. "She loves me dearly and will support me in every area of my life," he explained.
His greatest achievement is acquiring the Braillelight- braille computer, available in the USA, England and France. It allows blind people to read Braille in a much easier way.
"I searched through the Internet for this equipment so that I would not have difficulty in achieving my goals," Maxfaults said.
Not surprisingly his credo is "don't judge anyone by their external appearance but take a look at the person within".