Adrienne Murray is widely known in the Breede Valley as a matric learner who achieved great success in 2022 despite being visually impaired.
She was named as one of the learners with the highest averages in the matric exams and received recognition from the Western Cape Education Department by placing first in the category “excellence despite barriers to learning” with an average of 75,4%.
What makes this achievement even more spectacular is that she was the first blind learner from the Pioneer School to take maths, physics and life sciences as subjects and write it in the matric exams in many years.
She was also the only blind learner in the Western Cape to write maths during the 2022 matric exams.
Adrienne explains that she was “shocked” at the news, and said when she was called on the stage to receive her award and R10 000 cash prize it came as a surprise and also an “absolute honour”.
This bright star says she will spend a certain amount of it on her family and save the rest.
According to her dad Marius, the Murray family is used to fighting for the disabled, having accompanied Adrienne on her journey to complete loss of sight and its challenges and triumphs from early childhood. Diagnosed with eye cancer at 23 months, at age 13 she lost the last 5% of her eyesight.
According to Adrienne her parents had always encouraged her to “use her words and her voice” which, she explained, equipped her to be independent and self-assertive.
Currently she struggles with continuous neuralgia, but remains dedicated to pursuing her dream of studying animal science up to doctoral level and at some point wishes to do research on the use of prosthetics in animals.
“I have always loved animals and watched documentaries on wildlife and nature,” said Adrienne, who initially wished to pursue a career in marine biology, but drifted towards animal science later on.
She has always been a disciplined student and decided at a young age that “nothing will stop me.”
Adrienne encourages those who are visually impaired to “not allow other people tell them what they can or cannot do because the world is their oyster.”
At the time of writing she was waiting to hear whether she was accepted for animal science undergraduate-degree study at Stellenbosch University.
