HELEN KELLER

On the centenary of her birth, which took place back in 1880, the American State of Pennsylvania declared June, the 27th the Helen Keller’s Day, promoted by the museum dedicated to this bold personality that probably many of you already know.

The American Helen Adams Keller, a lecturer, an activist and a writer, was an extraordinary woman. Due to a harsh fever illness when she was just two years old, Helen became blind, deaf and dumb. At age 7, she had made up up to 60 signs so as to communicate with a friend, but her erratic behaviour made her family to worry about the need to leave her in a special school. Still, her mother would not give up and after reading about the possible education of blind and deaf child in a Dickens book, she visited several institutions, until she found the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston, a suggestion made by the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, who was working with deaf children at the time. At Perkins, Helen began to be educated by Susan Sullivan.

Their educator-pupil relationship would last for the next 49 years of their lives. Finger spelling was the initial formula to follow conversation classes in several schools for the deaf (it took Helen 25 years to learn to speak in order to be able to communicate with others) and to attend college.

People felt surprised and admired about the achievements of Helen, and she got to meet many influential people, including the writer Mark Twain, who procured her with the protection of businessman Henry H. Rogers, who financed her studies. Susan Sullivan accompanied her to every lesson. Keller graduated with cum laude, while writing her achievements in ‘The Story of My Life’.

Helen Keller became a determined lecturer and an activist for women’s suffrage, workers’ rights, the rights of disabled and pacifism. She visited more than 40 countries to inspire people to improve themselves and pursue their goals, and nowadays she has become a symbol of resilience and dedication to others.
Her inspirations:

Optimism is the faith that leads to success. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.

 

What we have once enjoyed, is never lost. All we have loved deeply becomes a part of ourselves.

 

We should never consent to crawl when we feel the impulse to fly.

 

Security is mostly a superstition. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

 

When one door of happiness is closed, another one opens, but too often we look at the closed door for so long that we do not see the one has been opened for us.

 

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an undiscovered land, or opened a new hope in the human heart.

 

Tyranny cannot defeat the power of ideas.

 

In the wonderful realm of mind I can be free like everyone else.

 

Do not tilt your head, but keep it always up high. Look at the world straight in the face.

 

I’m not the only one, but I’m still someone. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and just because I cannot do everything, I will not give up doing what I can.

 

It all comes down to this: the easiest way to be happy is to do good.

 

I wish you a happy week,

Álex Rovira