Each year on the first Friday of September, people are called upon to dress up and support disabled people. Casual Day is a fundraising project benefiting persons with disabilities. In aid of this, Rhodes screened a touching documentary, Emmanuel's Gift on Thursday evening.
Each year on the first Friday of September, people are called upon to dress up and support disabled people. Casual Day is a fundraising project benefiting persons with disabilities. In aid of this, Rhodes screened a touching documentary, Emmanuel's Gift on Thursday evening.
Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah was born with one normal leg and one small twisted leg in the West African country of Ghana. Deformity is widespread in Ghana and with no support from the government the disabled are usually expected to become beggars. Considered as a second rate citizen, Emmanuel’s mother was advised to poison him. Instead she did not keep him concealed and enrolled him in a primary school, where he learnt the harsh reality of discrimination.
At the age of 13 his mother fell sick and Emmanuel was forced to find a job and support an extended family living under very primitive conditions. Refusing to give up his dignity by begging, he found a job as a shoe shiner, earning just $2 a day.
Emmanuel always wanted to do more with his life so after his mother died he decided to cycle across Ghana. He approached the Challenged Athletics Foundation (CAF), which sent him a bicycle to further his endeavour of fighting against hundreds of years of negative perceptions against disabled persons.
People got talking; it was like Forrest Gump all over again, he was doing what people with two legs couldn’t, said one admirer. When the media got involved and supporters started to emerge, the politicians too began to take notice.
At this point the Challenged Athletics Foundation flew him down to the USA, his first time out of the country, to cycle a 56km fundraiser. They were taken aback by Emmanuel's extremely humble nature and were able to provide him with prosthesis and rehabilitation. In the USA disabled people are not only supported, but embraced so Emmanuel started seeing the possibilities stretching out before him.
After successfully undergoing surgery for a prosthetic leg, Emmanuel decided that his goal would be to help other disabled people in Ghana. He became the first handicapped person to be invited to the King’s palace where, with the help of the Challenged Athletes Foundation, he awarded educational scholarships and wheelchairs to the handicapped.
With the awards that he received from Casey Martin Award, sponsored by Nike, and CAF, Emmanuel founded the Emmanuel Educational Foundation and Sports Academy for the physically challenged. His foundation, with the assistance of Two Wheeled Foundation members, donated 100 recycled wheelchairs to disabled people in Ghana every year.
After overcoming the difficult odds against him, Emmanuel is achieving his goal of empowering the disabled, giving them back their dignity. He was able to turn his life around and to prove that no obstacle is too difficult to overcome.
