PARIS (OIS) – Simply three months after Solange NYIRANEZA (RWA) was born, her dad and mom had been killed throughout a theft, leaving her 11-year-old sister to take care of her and her brother.
They’d no residence, typically compelled to maneuver from place to position. Generally, there was not sufficient cash for meals.
At 5 – after she disobeyed her sister and went exterior to play along with her brother and a few associates – she fell and broke her patella.
“We hid the damage for one week from my sister as we had been afraid she’d be indignant,” NYIRANEZA (pictured) stated. “After we ultimately bought to the hospital they examined my bones and instructed me I had bone most cancers and needed to amputate.”
At this level, her sister decided that saved her life, main her to the place she is as we speak.
“There have been some in my household who had been saying that individuals with disabilities weren’t vital,” NYIRANEZA stated.
“They had been saying, ‘Don’t maintain that woman. Maintain her brother. He’s a person. He can develop up. He can do one thing which is healthier than that woman’. However my sister was combating for me. She insisted she needed to maintain each of us.”
At present, at 28, NYIRANEZA helps help her household financially as a member of Rwanda’s girls’s sitting volleyball group, having found the game whereas at a boarding faculty for folks with disabilities.
“We had been combating to pay the varsity charges and my sister was combating to get supplies, cleaning soap, garments and so forth,” NYIRANEZA stated. “I used to be lonely, however after I noticed sitting volleyball I preferred it. Then some folks got here to decide on folks for the nationwide group (and) picked me.”
Her involvement within the sport was transformational.
“With out sitting volleyball, I don’t know the place my life can be,” she stated. “Should you play, they can provide you some cash if we’re flying to totally different nations. I nonetheless reside with my sister and I assist pay the varsity charges of her three youngsters. Now we’re wonderful. We aren’t unhealthy like earlier than.”
NYIRANEZA hopes her instance can assist change attitudes.
“Don’t look down on folks with disabilities,” she stated. “There are folks with no disabilities who by no means obtain the issues we do. Now I’m right here in Paris. I went to Rio, I went to Tokyo, I went to totally different nations.
“I fly world wide, whereas some folks have by no means even touched an aeroplane. We are able to do something. We are able to rise greater than others.”
Supply: OIS – “Orphaned at three months, her leg amputated aged 5, NYIRANEZA (RWA) owes every thing to sitting volleyball”
Photograph: WPV/Sinisa Kanizaj.
