Inner-city woman beats odds to earn law degree

Two shooting incidents, 13 years apart, have always reminded Quidi-Ann King to work assiduously to get out of Bertram Lane, otherwise known as Spade Corner, off Maxfield Avenue.

Her hard work paid off as the 23-year-old was recently awarded her bachelor of law degree from the University of the West Indies, Mona. In the first incident, when she was just six, her mother was shot outside their family home.

"I was standing there and everything felt like it was going at a fast pace. I remember when she came home, she said the doctor told her that if the shot had gone just three inches higher, she would've been crippled," King said. Thirteen years later, during her second year of sixth form at St Andrew Technical, a bullet entered her bedroom, where she and her niece and nephew were sleeping. The shot grazed her nephew.

"Out of fright, I pulled off my niece and we were flat on the ground. When I got up my dresser glass was completely shattered, only the bullet hole (was left)," she said. "This was the hole I would look at when I had exams, when the days were hard and the school fee seemed impossible ... I got all the motivation I needed."

But just starting her studies was difficult as she did not have all of the $1.2 million needed to enroll in the law faculty when she started in 2017. She only had $800,000 from the Students' Loan Bureau.

"I wrote to the dean of discipline of the faculty. I told him I got into the faculty, where I was from and that this was a good opportunity for me but I couldn't fund myself. The first week of school, I did not pay a dollar so I did not have a schedule, I was just showing up and going to lectures," she said.

Three-year programme

King said the dean recommended her for the Mona Law Bursary. The scholarship would be valid until she completed the three-year programme, if she maintained a grade point average of 3.0 and above, which she did.

However, she knew the tuition would increase, so she applied for every grant and scholarship she knew. In her last two years of study, she was awarded a myriad of scholarships covering the full cost of her tuition. But she said she had to work twice as hard as everyone else because of her socio-economic background.

"And I was one of two persons from my high school. I did not fit in so I had a lot of catching up to stay afloat," she said.

King is the first of her mother's six children to have earned tertiary education. She said her mother, Vanetta Forbes, prayed continuously for her success while at university, despite working an income as a domestic worker that could not cover her tuition. She said her mother described her achievement as her greatest moment.

King, who wants to be an attorney, advised persons from similar social backgrounds to work harder and not allow the circumstances to deter them from achieving.

"People don't remember your story unless you win, so win. It matters not the external factor because whatever drive you need to propel forward, it is in you, you have to search and find it and maximise it," she said.