Anya Barrett: Nursing Student and Student of the World

Anya Barrett is a nursing student who has seen more in her lifetime so than most adults twice her age.

She was born in Jamaica and lived there for eight years. Her family then moved to the Bahamas, as her mom wanted to help out the Bahamian people by being a pharmacist since they were in dire need of assistance there. After living in the Bahamas for two years, a friend of the family asked if they wanted to move to Sierra Leone, West Africa, to assist with a humanitarian hospital.

Her family accepted the chance to serve at that hospital and lived in Sierra Leone for two years. Anya says that part of the world has been her favorite place so far. She fell in love with the culture that celebrates a simple life. She says she had fun, made friends, and learned some of the native languages.

Her dad decided to finish up his schooling in Ghana, so Anya and her family spent some time in that part of Africa before coming to America in 2014 to plant their roots. Instilled with a love for travel and new experiences, Anya moved to Canada to complete her nursing school prerequisites at Burman University.

She transferred to Kettering College and will finish up her nursing degree this December. She has known since she was six years old that she has wanted to be a nurse. She would go to work with her mom at a clinic and saw nurses administering medication there and wanted to be the person who would do that one day.

When she was in Sierra Leone, her decision to become a nurse was solidified. She was only ten years old but was eager and allowed to observe C-sections and amputations at the humanitarian hospital. She knew then this is her calling, and she is excited to be so close to starting a career she has been dreaming of since childhood.  

She says she believes Black History Month is an important time to highlight the accomplishments of Black people because sometimes they’re not talked about or taught enough in schools. She points out when she was in Jamaica, the Bahamas, and Africa, she never thought about being Black, but when she came to America, she started to notice a difference between she and her White peers.

Anya felt out of place at first and didn’t know why. She eventually realized, “Ah, yes. I’m of a different skin color,” something she had never considered as a difference before her move to America. Seeing the stories from Black History Month and the focus on historical figures makes her wish she had seen such things when she first moved to America and was feeling out of place.

She says, “It makes me feel so good that people who look like me did all these wonderful things. If I had known that when I first came here, I wouldn’t have felt so out of place or different.”

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