Natassia Wright overcomes tragedy to motivate others

Despite losing both parents, her grandmother and her childhood home all before age 18, Natassia Wright refused to quit, and this has led to her success in motivating others.

Raised in Allman Town, Kingston, Wright described the fire, which occurred when she was just 10, as one of the most traumatic things that ever happened to her.

"About 10 of us were displaced for a really long period of time. You know how it go, whoever has to sleep on the ground, sleep on the ground. We had to do a lot of rearranging just to pick up the pieces and to be able to carry on with life," she said. But eight months later, Wright's father, a policeman, was shot and killed in the line of duty.

"My father and I, we had such a great relationship. It was a strong bond, [he was] an excellent father. Valentine's Day he bought me stuff, we would always go out," she said. "It was rough for me. I remember going through life telling myself that someone was going to pinch me and I would wake up from my dream." Wright said she was on 'autopilot' but still doing well in school. Then her mother died when she was 16. Her mother was asthmatic and always had attacks.

"That Saturday I couldn't go to the hospital with her though because my brother was alone at home. So she told me to stay with my younger brother and she would go to KPH [Kingston Public Hospital] and get nebulised and come back," she recalled. Watching her mother leave in a taxi was the last time she saw her alive. Her death occurred during Wright's Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) tests.

"That Monday morning, I remember I had social studies and I braved it and went to school. I remember crying in that exam because there was so much going on that my poor mind couldn't process. I still went to school because it was my mother's dream for me to get at least six out of the eight subjects. So I said I wasn't going to sit and say 'Boy, woe is me' and fail," she said.

Wright passed all her CXC subjects with grade ones and twos. But she faced more tribulations with the passing of her grandmother with whom she and her little brother lived after the death of their parents. She also shared that she was molested multiple times over the years and seen gang violence up close.

"I know what a ghetto can produce and I used to worry and say 'God is this what my life is going to be like?'" she said. But Wright pressed on regardless, enrolling into the University of Technology Jamaica.

"I finished my degree, started working and it wasn't until I met my husband and gave my life to Christ that I said instead of sitting on my story and hiding it, I said I'd share it with people," she said.

Now 33, Wright is a United Nations peace ambassador and owns and operates her own motivational speaking and leadership training company with her husband. Looking back at her experiences, Wright says she would not a change a thing.

"It's because I've been through those things why I am able to do what I do and do it effectively," she said. "There is just this resilience in me. There is something that pushes me and tells me that I must make it and I shouldn't quit and I follow that instinct. I'm also guided and fuelled because I know if I don't keep going, there's another 'Natassia' ... that needs to hear my story, that needs to see me going so that they can get moving. And so I know that I can't give up," she said.