Vanessa’s journey of becoming a lawyer

The 22 year old Vanessa Puri from the Keranum Village of Vanka tribe in the Tambul Nebilyer District, Western Highlands was among the females who graduated with Bachelor of Law during the University of Papua New Guinea’s 70th Graduation earlier this week.

Like others, Vanessa's dream of becoming a Lawyer was motivated by understanding the environment and challenges people especially women and children faces.

"My childhood dream was to be a novelist. I wanted to write books. As I grew up I saw the problems that our society faced especially the injustice done to women and children. I wanted to help them and I saw that being a Lawyer is the best so I can help in some ways the injustice done to the weak. That was my main motivation in taking up law," Ms Puri said.

"Also I came to find that lawyers are great writers and readers. They are also great public speakers. That motivated me more."

Apart from this she also believed that being a lawyer will also help to protect herself.

"I learnt that lawyers know the law that protects them. I thought that was the best way I could protect myself. That is knowing my rights and who are the people in place that I can go for protection.

"I know that this country is a very dangerous place for a women. Violence is very common especially on women and children. I did not want to face that or any other women. Thus, I took up law," Vanessa added.

While having those dream and goals set, Vanessa committed her time and put in more effort to achieve.

She said education journey was not easy however, she remained vigilant and determined.

"I can say in a way that Ben Carson's story is my story. I was a very poor student who scored very bad grades from primary up. I struggled a lot to understand things,: she said.

Ms Puri added that another factor that pushed her to improve and remain focused was the problems her family faced especially her parent's marriage.

"My mom was very down due to her shaken marriage and the only way to make her happy, as I came to know, was to do well in school," she said.

While considering those factors she stood strong and committed her time and read more books. She knew that reading would only enhanced her understanding and help improve on some areas she lack.

"I got my hands on the books of Ben Carson on 'Think Big' and 'Gifted Hands'. These two books thoroughly changed me a lot. I found that the secret to excel was reading and I read intensively.

"I read newspapers and journals. I read as much as I can and before I knew it in my higher secondary school I became the top student," she said.

Meanwhile apart from her concentration education, Vanesa faithfully participated in church activities.

She testified that being faithfu l in church oriented activities like the local youth programs help benefited her a lot.

"All my life, God came first so with my busy school schedule I managed to slip in time for church and some roles in it.

"It was not hard managing between church responsibilities and school. When I put God first I saw that he helped me to study and so I fully took part in church and some activities it had. By giving God my time, God helped me to pass all my courses successfully," Vanessa added.

Her encouragement is the young ones is that nothing is hard.

"Anything you set your mind to you can do. Lawyers are readers. Lawyers are disciplined. Lawyers are hard-working. If you want to be a lawyers you have to read. Read far and wide. Read as much as you can. More so, discipline yourself and study hard."