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“WRITING SAVED MY LIFE”
In 2016, at the age of 26, Danijah Danijah was just another minimum wage cook, working at the Narcotics Canteen in Kingston, Jamaica and then IT happened.
Born Danijah Christopher Taylor, to a Rastafarian (12 Tribes of Israel) family, Danijah spent the first three years of his life living in Dread Heights, St Andrew. After his father travelled overseas in search of a better life, his grandmother (now suffering from Alzheimer’s) took him into her home in Portmore, St Catherine. At that tender age, she became his guide, shield and saviour. Today, Danijah attributes a large portion of his triumphs to her love and light.
In 2001, Danijah started attending Kingston College (KC), but his time at KC was filled with poor academic performance fuelled mostly by idle distractions and his dyslexia. His record of poor performance caused him to repeat grade nine. However, after his six years at KC he managed to pass six CSEC subjects, failing only Principles of Accounts because of not submitting a SBA. This was an accomplishment not many predicted.
Now out of high school, this marked the beginning of a major attitude change for Danijah. Having gotten his CSEC results late September 2007, he was unable to register for the proceeding school year. This forced him to sit at home for one year alone and depressed. This year facilitated critical thinking with regards to self-assessment, causing a drastic but positive change in Danijah’s outlook on his education. Coupling this new outlook with his motivation to change his situation, Danijah that year retook the Principles of Accounts examination he had previously failed. He passed with flying colours giving birth to a love for Accounting. Now focused on making up for past years, in September 2008 he enrolled at the Portmore Community College to pursue an Associate Degree in Accounting.
However, after two years and changing his programme to ACCA, Danijah at the top of his class was unable to continue as a full-time student because of financial constraints. In August 2010 he started a job at the Narcotics Canteen with the aim of working and going to school part-time, as finishing his degree would enable him to move more swiftly up the corporate ladder.
But a minimum wage job can only do so much! After three years of working in the canteen he was encouraged by the officers working to join the Police ranks. In 2013, he finally sat and passed the District Constable examination. After which he began the process of becoming an Officer, even completing the necessary medical examination. Danijah was thereafter placed on a long waitlist, which subsequently led to another phase of depression fuelled by a feeling of stagnation in life. In September 2014, he decided to rise from his self-withdrawn phase, attempting this time to embrace his roots and culture, a part of himself that Danijah felt he was fighting all the time. Successful, he organically entered a period of self-love, “overstanding”, and the discovery of the power within. Danijah now had an attitude to rediscover life and its meaning, driven by an appetite to gain knowledge. In October of that year he decided he was going to find the magic inside himself, his true purpose.
Danijah then went out and bought all types of artistic tools and equipment to try and find his power. A year passed, and he attained a DSLR camera from his father and he started to take photos, during that period in meditation he realized that throughout his childhood growing up he was good at developing stories and sharing them openly with his friends. However he believed that writing was still a far off dream because of his dyslexia. His fear was still very real. Further meditation led to more power and confidence and in January 2016 he developed his first original story. In that same month Danijah finally received the call from the Jamaica Constabulary Force regarding the commencement of his training. Now very much empowered by self, and emancipated by his vision, he declined the job offer without second thought, even though he was still working in the canteen. This was an idea many thought to be crazy. As the meditation deepened, he was led to the meeting and development of a brotherhood between himself and a talented illustrator Sha Vaughn Rattigan, who later introduced him to Don Mills. Don, at the time a second year Fine Arts student at the Edna Manley College. Combining these meetings and periods of introspection together, Danijah was inspired with the idea of creating Studio Dan.
Still not sure how he was going to manifest the energy, Danijah continued to capture and post his photographs to Facebook. That April, he was encouraged by his close friend and mentor Mrs. Sonia Glanville to enter the JCDC Photography Competition. Upon visiting the organization’s website the Photography Competition was closed, but the Creative Writing Competition was still accepting entries for the next two weeks. Danijah realized the gold in this opportunity, and with a theme of “Eat healthy, exercise and knock out obesity”, Danijah penned his first short story “Orlando Jack” which was illustrated by Andre Rankine (introduced to Danijah by Don Mills).
August 2016 saw Danijah receiving a Merit Award for his short story “Orlando Jack” by JCDC, which sparked a lot of personal gratitude based on it being written in a short time window, on his cell phone, due to having no computer at that time.
Filled with grammatical errors and mistakes caused by his dyslexia, Danijah had some doubts about his success. However, being awarded for the first work he publicly displayed gave Danijah even more power and endurance and he was now even more focused to do better, because he knew he could. In October 2016, he started penning his second short story; “Odaedah; Guardians and Gods” the first of a three-part novel illustrated by Don Mills. When November came, Danijah made the trod to “South Side” Downtown Kingston to speak to Shane “Eyeball” Morgan about his vision. He had met him earlier that year on the same day he met Don Mills.
The visit to South Side “LIFE YARD” proved worthwhile, more like destiny as Danijah would call it. A strong partnership developed, and on February 4, 2017 he saw the physical birth of Studio Dan through its first edutainment event, the live reading of the short story “Orlando Jack” held and hosted by LIFE YARD. This turned out to be magnificent, opening further Danijah’s eyes to the endless possibilities that surround him.
Studio Dan soon became a registered company and the need to edutain led to the development of Writing 4 Life, a free creative writing workshop for at-risk youths.
During the period of running the workshop in August 2017, Danijah was once again awarded by JCDC for his entry Odaedah; Guardians and Gods, this time receiving a silver medal. The first instalment of Writing 4 Life was a learning experience and with renewed motivation he tried once again in December 2017. The mission was very successful, Studio Dan collaborated with LIFE YARD and with the help of many passionate and hard-working volunteers, ten stories were collected from children at Fleet Street “South Side”; all while Danijah was still working as a cook at the Narcotics Canteen.
Fast forwarding to May 2018 having resigned from his job as a cook at the canteen and now working fully on Studio Dan fulltime; loaded with material and connections yet to be exposed Danijah Danijah looks to pioneer the literacy revolution in Jamaica.
