Nanditha Bindhu Biju, a 22-year-old disabled university student, is facing eviction from her accommodation in Birmingham's Chinatown area and an uncertain academic future after being made redundant from her part-time job at an events company.
Biju, who is from India and studies biomedical science at the University of Wolverhampton, can no longer afford her accommodation fees or her tuition fees following the job loss. She uses a wheelchair due to acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), a condition affecting her nervous system, which has made finding alternative employment extremely difficult.
Eviction notice and financial strain
"I'm currently in the middle of facing an eviction. I have university fees to pay, and I recently got laid off," Biju explained. "I couldn't save anything and as a disabled person, it's very hard for me to find work. I've been trying, trying, trying, but nothing is working. And that's been really hard."
She added: "I got the notification that if I don't pay the bill for my accommodation, then I'll get evicted. I have no place to go because I don't have any family here."
Biju has set a fundraising target of £5,000 to cover her immediate costs. "Some of it is for the tuition fee. If I don't pay even a bit of the tuition fee, they won't allow me to study more," she said.
A journey marked by hardship and ambition
Biju's path to the UK has been fraught with challenges. She experienced abuse as a child and faced prejudice after her disability began 13 years ago. "The whole reason I came to the UK is that I was very much bullied and made fun of, for my disability, and for who I am," she said.
"For a lot of years, I struggled with identifying myself as a disabled person. It took me a lot of time. People used to say that I shouldn't do further studies and everything. When I became disabled, it was very hard for me to cope with that because I was walking, and then suddenly I became wheel-dependent," she explained. "The survival rate is very low for ADEM," she added.
Despite these obstacles, Biju received strong support from her community in Kerala, which inspired her dream of building a hospital in the region. "You'll find the most lovely people there," she said. "A lot of people helped me get through that, and a lot of people were there for my family and me with a lot of kind hearts. If they were not able to help me, maybe I wouldn't be alive. I have this very big obligation, I feel like I owe to a lot of people."
Volunteering and future plans
Biju arrived in the UK about one year and seven months ago. Since then, she has volunteered for the NHS and progressed to her second year of university. She noted that volunteering opportunities were denied to her in India due to her disability. "In India, it's very hard for disabled people to find volunteering opportunities - it's often frowned upon," she said.
"When I came to the UK, I was so shocked because I never thought I could. We can do a lot of things that others can do, and I want to create a safe space for people like me," she added.
Beyond her ambition to build a hospital in Kerala, Biju hopes to establish a charity focused on creating accessible volunteering roles for disabled people. Reflecting on her current situation, she said: "I am not trying to panic. By panicking, it's not going to work. I'll just stress out, and I'm going to end up crying."
She added: "I feel like if I am here in the UK, then there must be something that I should be doing, and I need to complete. That is something that I need to fulfil in my life. I can't risk not paying the tuition fees because I have, like I said, I have a lot of things to do."
