Gennet Corcuera is the first deafblind child of birth to enter a Spanish university, a goal that

has been achieved by overcoming fears and with much effort, aided by mediators, colleagues
and teachers. "I hope my case will encourage others and open society to deafblindness," she
said in an interview.

Gennet was born 30 years ago, where she lived with her family for two years, until her parents
left her in an orphanage of nuns, where she was the only deafblind; there he suffered a lot and
faced various diseases.

It came out when a Spanish woman who visited the orphanage convinced the sisters to allow
her to adopt the little girl and brought her to Madrid, where she has lived since then.

Gennet Corcuera recalls from those years that "I did not know sign language and did not know
how to communicate, but I perceived bad things" from a country "with a lot of poverty, wars
and little food", she explains in a conversation she has maintained with the help of Raquel ,
which during the interview has become the eyes, the voice and the ears of the young woman.

She always needs a mediator to communicate because she expresses himself through the sign
language supported. So, to do this interview, Raquel takes her hands to, through touch,
formulate the questions, to which she answers in the traditional sign language.

The initial fear

Gennet arrived in Spain at the age of 7 and soon after began studying at the ONCE Antonio
Vicente Mosquete school, where she learned to express herself, to read in braille and to use
the dactilological and oral language through a speech therapist.

Until the end of the E.S.O., sshe shared classrooms with students who are deafblind, but the
baccalaureate was held at the Leandro Fernández Moratín institute in Pastrana (Guadalajara),
where, for the first time, she shared classrooms with students and professors outside the
special education system for the disabled.

"At the beginning I was very afraid," she admits, but once she finished the first course, always
with the help of a mediator in class, she felt "much happier", especially since many of her
classmates learned to communicate with her.
The second year of baccalaureate "was much more difficult" and he came to think of "leaving
everything". "I had to divide the courses in two, I received support classes from the teachers in
the afternoon, I was very tired, but the ONCE asked me to please continue."

This year she has passed the Selectividad tests with a more than good grade, 7.28, passing "the
same questions and exams" as her classmates, although she had more time because she "had
to answer with the Braille Lite" , a system that allows writing and oral review of what is written
for the blind.

Your reference: Hellen Keller

Now she faces, like so many other young people, the choice of a university career, but she still
does not know which one. "I would like Social Education," she says, but what she does have
"clear" is that she will not "be nervous" because she expects something "similar" to her high
school experience.

One of the great resources with which Gennet has to overcome obstacles is the Internet, a
network to which he gives "thanks" for giving him the opportunity to study and communicate.
The Braille line system "interprets what the computer says", so you can "use the messenger,
send emails, exercise and find information" like any other Internet user.

Gennet wants to end the conversation by recalling the figure of Hellen Keller and urging
people to learn from this deafblind American who managed to become a writer, speaker and
political activist in the early twentieth century.

Like her, Gennet hopes to become a reference for the 6,000 Spanish deafblind and is sure that
her case "will encourage them to do" what she and "open society to deafblindness, as they did
with me in high school," he says.

There are many barriers that prevent the social integration of the disabled.