emmanuel yeboah
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EMMANUEL YEBOAH
When Emmanuel Yeboah was born without a tibia in his right leg, his mother was advised to kill him. In Ghana, a disabled baby is considered a curse and is either poisoned or left in the forest to die. The lucky ones are hidden away until they can make their way to the streets, where they'll spend the rest of their lives begging.
Emmanuel's mother made a choice to keep her son alive and teach him to transcend all limitations. Every day she carried her son three miles to and from school. At school, Emmanuel was ostracized. But it was when he was turned away from the soccer team that he decided to take a stand. Earning a dollar a day shining shoes, he bought his own ball and offered it to his classmates on one condition—they had to include him on the team. With this small step, Emmanuel began a mission to forever change the treatment of Ghana's disabled population.
When Emmanuel's mother died, he chose to honor her life and the lives of Ghana's two million disabled by showing the world that people with disabilities can contribute to society. For 10 days, and with just one leg, Emmanuel rode nearly 400 miles across Ghana—a journey to prove to his country the value of all people. "I believe that I get my strength from my mother," Emmanuel says.
Since then, Mr. Yeboah has received the 2003 Casy Martin Award from Nike, and the 2005 ESPY Arthur Ashe Courage Award. He has used the funds from these awards and grants to distribute wheelchairs to disabled people in Ghana, and to provide scholarships for disabled Ghanaian children. His goal is to build a state-of-the-art sports academy in Ghana that will employ only the disabled, but will be open for use by all. He also hopes to organize a national team to compete in the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing, and plans to run for the Ghanaian Parliament.
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