This is the true story of Emmanuel Yeboah. Born in Ghana in 1977 with a deformed leg, he became the personification of courage, strength-mental and physical-and determination even as a child. His life and challenges are well-known in Ghana. This excellent picture book brings the narrative of his life to a wider audience, showing the power of the human spirit, even at a very young age! He is a true hero for kids.
Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah's inspiring true story-which was turned into a film, Emmanuel's Gift, narrated by Oprah Winfrey-is nothing short of remarkable. Born in Ghana, West Africa, with one deformed leg, he was dismissed by most people-but not by his mother, who taught him to reach for his dreams.
Laurie Ann Thompson is the author of Be a Changemaker: How to Start Something That Matters, a how-to guide for teens who want to change the world. An advocate for social justice, Laurie is dedicated to inspiring and empowering young readers. Emmanuel's Dream is her picture-book debut. Visit her at lauriethompson.com. Sean Qualls has illustrated many highly acclaimed children's books, including Giant Steps to Change the World by Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis Lee, Lullaby by Langston Hughes, and Before John Was a Jazz Giant by Carole Boston Weatherford, which was named a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book. Sean also created the art for Dizzy by Jonah Winter, which received five starred reviews, and Freedom Song by Sally M. Walker.
Let's delve into the extraordinary life of this remarkable individual.
Early Life and Challenges
Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah was born in rural Ghana in 1977 with a missing right tibia, or shin bone. His foot dangled uselessly from the curled up stump of his lower leg.
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Saddled with a useless right leg, abandoned by his father, orphaned by his mother's death, and living in a country where physical deformities have traditionally been considered a curse, Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah faced odds that would intimidate any Westerner. The best a disabled Ghanaian could hope for in a country with an annual income of less than $500 was to eek out an impoverished living as a street beggar.
Yeboah told Sports Illustrated that in the deeply superstitious country of Ghana, "when you are a deformed child, people think your mother sinned." His father, ashamed of the child, abandoned the family soon after Yeboah's birth. Friends and family urged Yeboah's mother to abandon or even kill the baby. Comfort Yeboah, a proud woman with a deep sense of human dignity, did neither. Instead she lived up to her name by nurturing her son. Yeboah and his mother lived in a tiny home that lacked electricity and plumbing. His bed was the dirt packed floor. Despite this poverty, as a Ghanaian, he had access to free public education. Though disabled children rarely took advantage of this opportunity, Comfort insisted that Yeboah be educated. At first she carried him two miles each way to school. Later, when he was old enough to get to school on his own, he recalled to the New York Daily News, "I'd hop on my leg." Of 240 students, Yeboah was the only disabled child.
This story is, however, as much a story of a strong mother as of a son; indeed, we can say that Emmanuel’s strength must have flowed from Mummy Comfort, a mother who had faith, and refused to accept that her son’s misshapened leg was going to be an impediment. In a cultural environment where any disability can easily mark one for life, Emmanuel, with his mother’s help, resolves to push on even as the conventional wisdom suggested that a boy who was not quite physically whole was bound to struggle. With Mummy Comfort’s encouragement ringing in his ears, Emmanuel goes to school, plays with his friends, and engages in opportunities to earn money. He does everything his friends and other school kids do: playing soccer, riding a bike, shining shoes!
At the age of 13 Yeboah dropped out of school against his mother's wishes. She had fallen ill and he decided to travel to Accra, Ghana's capital, to earn some money. Though the streets were teeming with disabled beggars, Yeboah preferred to work. He set up a little shoe shine box and earned $2 a day shining shoes. During a holiday visit home, Yeboah's mother died. It was Christmas Eve, 1997. Right before she died she pulled Yeboah to her side and told him, "Don't let anybody put you down because of your disability," Yeboah recalled to the New York Daily News. They were words that would change his life. "What my mother told me was a gift.
As a boy, Emmanuel hopped to school more than two miles each way, learned to play soccer, left home at age thirteen to provide for his family, and, eventually, became a cyclist.
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A Bicycle Journey and a Powerful Message
After his mother's death Yeboah returned to Accra. Shining shoes on the streets day after day, he witnessed the resigned desperation of the other disabled people around him. Somewhere in the midst of their hopeless begging and the constant back and forth rustle of his shoe brush, an idea was born. Yeboah decided he would bike around Ghana to raise awareness of the plight of the disabled. "I wanted people to know that if you are a disabled person in your leg, you're not a disabled person in your mind," he told The Mercury News.
A doctor told Yeboah about the California-based Challenged Athlete Foundation (CAF), an organization that supports disabled athletes. Yeboah had never written a letter before, yet he carefully prepared a request to the organization explaining his idea and asking for a bike. Yeboah's friends were skeptical. "Riding a bicycle 600 kilometers on one leg-who ever heard of that before?" Gordon Abodoe told the New York Daily News. However, when Abodoe and his friends saw Yeboah take the new bike out for its first spin, they gave him a rousing ovation of applause.
For several months after receiving the bike, Yeboah juggled training with seeking governmental support. He tried several times to get a meeting with Ghana's King Osagyefuo, but was turned away at the palace doors. Disabled people were believed to be too unworthy to step onto royal property. Finally the king agreed to meet Yeboah. It was the first time a disabled person had been allowed entrance to the palace. Yeboah told the king of his plan and the bike he had received from CAF.
In 2001 Yeboah began his journey. He was 24. Over several months he rode 380 miles through Ghana, wearing a bright red shirt that read "The Pozo," Ghanaian slang for a disabled person. Along the way he stopped to meet villagers, speak with disabled children, and give speeches to dignitaries, church leaders, and the ever-present media. He was not afraid to speak out against the government's policy on the disabled, and politely, consistently requested that the disabled be given the same respect as the able-bodied.
Map of Ghana, where Emmanuel Yeboah undertook his courageous cycling journey.
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He rode an astonishing four hundred miles across Ghana in 2001, spreading his powerful message: disability is not inability.
Yeboah had a better idea-he would take a bike ride. With just one good leg, he pedaled around the sub-Saharan nation in an effort to open his countrymen's eyes to the fact that disability does not mean inability.
Emanuel Ofoso Yeboah : Inspiring Life Story
International Recognition and a New Leg
His 400-mile journey took Yeboah worlds away from his final destination. He was thrust into international celebrity, featured in a documentary, and given a brand new leg. Since then he has embarked on a new journey-transforming the lives of Ghana's estimated 2 million disabled people. "In this world, we are not perfect," Yeboah humbly told the New York Daily News. "We can only do our best.
CAF officials closely followed Yeboah's journey and after he finished, they invited him to California to participate in the 2002 Triathlon Challenge, CAF's primary fundraiser. Yeboah took seven hours to complete the 56-mile bike leg of the event.
While in California, Yeboah was examined by doctors at the Loma Linda University Orthopaedic and Rehabilitation Center. They determined that he was a good candidate for a prosthetic leg and asked him if he would like to undergo an amputation to be fitted for the device. "At the Triathlon, I saw athletes like Rudy Garcia-Tolson and Paul Martin running and biking on a prosthesis," Yeboah recalled to OandP. In April of 2003, Loma Linda performed the operation free of charge. Normal costs for such a procedure would have reached into the tens of thousands of dollars.
The operation was a success. Not only did Yeboah get to wear pants and a pair of shoes for the first time in his life, six weeks after the operation, he returned to San Diego to compete in the CAF triathlon. With two legs, he was able to shave three hours off his time, finishing the course in four hours. Back home in Ghana, he donned a tan suit and walked on his own two feet into his church for the first time in his life. He quickly adapted to a life free of crutches and soon began to run and even play soccer. To cap off an amazing year, in December of 2003 he married a woman named Elizabeth.
Awards, Achievements, and Continued Advocacy
Yeboah's achievements did not go unnoticed. In 2003, CAF named him the Most Inspirational Athlete of the Year. Actor Robin Williams presented him with the award along with a state-of-the-art running leg. The Nike award came with a check for $25,000. CAF matched that gift with another $25,000. Yeboah used the money to create the Emmanuel Education Fund in Ghana. "My goal is to make sure that children with disabilities get an education, receive proper medical care, and play sports whenever they want," he told OandP.
His actions have won him the respect of fellow Ghanaian, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan as well as King Osagyefuo, who has adopted Yeboah's cause. The king has provided financial and managerial support for the Emmanuel Education Fund and has arranged academic and athletic training for Yeboah.
Yeboah's rise from a one-legged orphan to a sure-footed athlete and disabled rights activist was the kind of human tale that begged to be told. Fortunately, talented twin-sister filmmakers Lisa Lax and Nancy Stern heard about the tale in 2003 from a friend at the CAF. They spent several months filming Emmanuel's Gift in the United States and Ghana. They were there as Yeboah oversaw the distribution of 100 wheelchairs to Ghanaian street people. "Those people were literally crawling on their hands and knees," to get to the chairs, Lax told The Mercury News. "I was shooting as the scene unfolded, and I had to put my camera down because tears were streaming down my cheeks.
Meanwhile Yeboah continued changing people's lives. He has established cycling and running teams, and a wheelchair basketball team. He is negotiating funding for a Sports Academy for disabled athletes in Ghana and trying to form a Ghanaian team to compete in the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing.
All of Yeboah's work on behalf of the disabled in Ghana is double-sided. On the one hand he has shown able-bodied Ghanaians, from paupers to princes, that the disabled are as normal as any one of them. On the other hand, he has taught disabled Ghanaians to believe in themselves, to pick themselves up off the ground and be proud. "His impact has been very tremendous," his friend Abodoe told the New York Daily News. "He's affected the lives of so many people who otherwise would've lived very depressed lives." All that as a result of a mourning boy's desire to fulfill his mother's dying wish.
Emmanuel Yeboah with Robin Williams.
Here's a summary of Emmanuel Yeboah's achievements and contributions:
| Achievement/Contribution | Details |
|---|---|
| 2001 Bike Ride | Rode 380 miles across Ghana to raise awareness about disability. |
| 2003 Most Inspirational Athlete | Awarded by the Challenged Athletes Foundation. |
| Emmanuel Education Fund | Created to provide education and medical care for disabled children in Ghana. |
| Sports Teams | Established cycling, running, and wheelchair basketball teams. |
| Sports Academy | Negotiating funding for a Sports Academy for disabled athletes in Ghana. |
| 2008 Paralympic Games | Trying to form a Ghanaian team to compete. |
| Free Wheelchair Mission | Distributed over one hundred wheelchairs to disabled Ghanaians. |
If you are born disabled in Ghana, West Africa, you are likely to be poisoned or left to die by your family. If you are not poisoned or left for dead, you're likely to be hidden away. If you're not hidden, you will most likely spend your lifetime begging on the streets. Of the twenty million people in Ghana, two million are disabled. Emmanuel is the subject of the documentary film Emmanuel's Gift (narrated by Oprah Winfrey), directed by Lisa Lax and Nancy Stern.
To focus the attention of his countrymen on this issue, Emmanuel decided to ride a bike across Ghana. Though he'd mastered pedaling with only one leg, there was another obstacle: he didn't own a bike. He sought out the Challenged Athlete Foundation in the United States. In July 2002, on a bicycle provided by the CAF, Emmanuel embarked on his journey, which was documented in newspapers and on the radio. By the time he reached his destination, Emmanuel was a national hero.
One year later, the CAF flew Emmanuel to San Diego to compete in a triathlon. Arriving with two crutches under his arms and three dollars in his pocket, he rode a 56-mile bike segment as part of a relay team. Doctors at Loma Linda Medical Center evaluated Emmanuel and determined that his leg could be partially amputated and fit for a prosthetic that would free him of his crutches. In April 2003, Emmanuel was given a brand new life. He has since turned his focus toward improving the lives of Ghana's many disabled citizens.
In April 2004, at an unprecedented ceremony at the King's Palace in Kibi, Ghana, Emmanuel awarded educational scholarships to fifteen disabled children and presented five disabled athletes with sports wheelchairs.
Today, his goal is to build a state-of-the-art sports academy for both able-bodied and physically challenged athletes, which will employ only the disabled. He also organized a team of disabled athletes that represented Ghana in the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing.
With the Free Wheelchair Mission, Emmanuel distributed over one hundred wheelchairs to fellow disabled Ghanaians. Eventually he aims to run for Parliament.
In 2003, he received the Casey Martin Award from Nike, which honors an individual who has excelled in athletic pursuit while overcoming significant physical, mental, societal or cultural challenges, and/or who proudly serves as an advocate for fellow athletes with disabilities.
In 2005 Emmanuel received the prestigious Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPY's with his friend Jim MacLaren, who inspired the creation of the Challenged Athletes Foundation. The two men received an emotional five- minute standing ovation. Previous winners include Muhammad Ali, Jim Valvano, and Billie Jean King. Later that year he and Jim appeared together on The Oprah Winfrey Show. His story has also been featured on Nightline and Quite Frankly with Stephen A. Smith.
Emmanuel had the honor of meeting with President George W. Bush and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Emmanuel’s first book, A Mother’s Love, a short autobiographical text about his childhood in Ghana, was published in 2012. In speaking to First World audiences, Emmanuel is raising awareness about disability around the world and raising funds for the Free Wheelchair Program and his scholarship initiative.
Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah was born in rural Ghana in 1977 with a missing right tibia, or shin bone. His foot dangled uselessly from the curled up stump of his lower leg. That is when Emmanuel becomes the embodiment of courage, strength and determination. He becomes a national hero, a role model, and a success. Emmanuel’s story is accompanied by Sean Qualls’ bold, beautiful, robust renditions of Emmanuel and his folk. In the author’s note we learn that Emmanuel’s political activism prompted the Ghanaian Parliament to pass the Persons with Disability Act that entitles people with disabilities to the same rights as other citizens in Ghana. Emmanuel’s Dream is highly recommended. What a story!
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