Little people Big Moves - Ellies Woods pushes down every door to her success

MANDEVILLE, Manchester:

Twenty-three-year-old Ellies Woods has never subscribed to the labels put on her, even to the point where not doing the test to determine what form of dwarfism she has, is really of no big deal.

She knows what she is about and what she is after, making it hard for anyone and anything to distract her or derail her plans.

With numerous plans for her future, Woods has so far completed the administrative assistants course Level III at the Heart Vocational Training Centre and is currently pursuing an Associate's degree in business administration.

"I want to get a permanent job in administration even while studying because I am flexible. I have a lot of things I want to do. Yea h man, I have big dreams of building a house on my parents' land. My heart is always in hospitality, so I would want to go into that field in the future, and I want to travel the world," Woods told The Gleaner.

But was Woods always this confident?

"My childhood was pretty rough, especially when you and your friends are the same age, but because of your height, people treat you differently. In my community back in Cross Keys, it wasn't bad, but outside of the community, it was hard."

Known as the little vivacious, yet feisty woman, Woods said she has never given anybody authority over her life but God.

"I don't take talk from anybody. I speak my mind and people will say I am feisty. When people say 'You head big, you short, your hands short eeh', I really don't fuel a discussion. There are those people who are ignorant, and you can see with the- like this one boy in high school who thought because of my height, I didn't have a menstrual cycle. Go figure," said Woods through bouts of laughter

Perks for being short

She said though there are some perks to being short, there are some moments when she wished she was tall or of average height.

"Back in high school, I would only be at the back of the canteen line, if my friends were in the line and even if they weren't, you would have a few persons, who would say, 'Ellies, a you dat round deh so, come up ina di line man'...and then the canteen staff would always look out for me too."

She continued: "...every year when the new students came, you had a new batch that would be fascinated by how you looked and the questions would just come, you couldn't catch a break and then another thing I couldn't reach the stand pipe. I had to be drinking out of people's hand, man! But those were my real friends. It was either that or me go a di canteen go beg a cup, but that was rare because I never liked bothering people."

When asked if she plans to have a family in the future, she had this to say:

"The very, very, very far future. Just joking, but I am really not eager to enter into a relationship with someone who is not really going to bring anything to the table. They would be wasting their time and my time, and now, I have to be focused on what I want to achieve," Woods told The Gleaner.

One cannot simply meet Woods and not be intrigued by her reasoning ability and motivation to excel.

She had these final words for her counterparts:

"Don't let your height deter you. Make it be your motivation. Just try and push yourself because you are always going to have persons out there that will tell you that you can't do this or that, but know yourself and know what you stand for, even if you have to drop a few friends. Don't let people's opinion of you make you feel small, then you start getting comfortable and later have regrets that you didn't get to do things you could have... Push down ever door out there if you want to achieve."

rural@gleanerjm.com