SAYED

PHOTO BY RANDY BACON

SAYED

“My Life Changed 180 Degrees”

Since I was born, I have had a visual impairment. I have been fascinated by numbers, digital programs and electronics. Even immersed in it and taking a lot of dealing with it to be my goal. And this is where my journey began.

When I was six I started attending an elementary school, in my home country Bahrain, I was struggling a lot. Our school system is not friendly with students who have visual impairment, also a lot of times the students made fun of me because of how my eyes look, but I was ignoring every bullying I got from the students which made me stronger.

My first semester of middle school was so bad, the school that I went to wasn't that great. I got bullied by a lot of students, I still remember some of the stuff that they were doing to me, for example one time one of the students stuck a gum on my chair which was not fun. He made everyone laugh at me. One time a student broke my favorite sunglasses and they were expensive and prescribed just for me. Since that I said to my dad that I am not going to school anymore. My dad went to the school’s principal and talked with him about that and they decided to move me to another school. Which was better for me.

And here when I got involved with social media I opened my own YouTube channel. I wasn't sure what I was doing, I started with a phone only. I didn't know what editing videos meant. My content is about iPhone and PC technical support. I got a lot of negative comments, but that never stopped me from challenging myself. I improved myself a lot in one year. I understood most of the YouTube rules, I learned how to edit the videos, I started to get invited to a lot of exhibitions, in one of them I got 2nd place and an iPad which was the real begining.

After 3 years my channel grew a lot, my experience has greatly improved, I started my tiktok account which went viral in a few months only, even my home country channel Bahrain TV did an interview with me.

My life changed 180˚

I moved to the US on Aug 21st. I stayed in Springfield, Missouri. I was hosted by Empower abilities’s CEO Shannon Porter. She was more than just a host mom to me, in the beginning I was nervous. I had a lot of questions in my mind but when I came to the states within a week or so I found an answer for all these questions. I was attending Kickapoo High school and it was the best school I’ve been I wasn’t struggling that much my teachers were more than helpful, my school even gave me an iPad so I can use for school, it was more than helpful, I was taking classes that I wasn’t able to take in my home country like math and science because of my vision problems.

One day in school during PE class I got hit by a dodgeball in my eye which affects my vision and I started to get bad headaches till we went to the doctor and we discovered that my eye pressure is so high. We tried a lot of things like eye drops and pills unfortunately none of them helped till I did my first surgery in the states without my family. I was the one who made this decision. I was scared but I did it. After two months we got the bad news that my pressure is high again and I did the surgery again, and I did the same surgery for the third time but in my right eye this time.

I feel that I am more independent and responsible for myself, I feel that the US is my second home and I hope to see this beautiful country again some day