Some Good Role Models
Some inspiring stories for children and adults to look up to.
How many times did your parents tell you that you could be anything you wanted to be or do anything you wanted to do? Parents of children with disabilities offer the same encouragements, but try to keep the hopes and dreams of the child in check. The parents encourage their kids in whatever they do, all the while walking the delicate line between trying to make the child understand that, realistically, there may be some things they can’t do and helping them make their dreams come true.
With all the news from the war, the everyday violence in our streets and countless other heartbreaking and gut-wrenching stories, it is rare to find an uplifting human interest story of a person doing something good that parents can set forth as an example to their children. It is even more rare to find such a story featuring a person with a disability that parents can set forth to their disabled child.
The stories of Miles Hilton-Barber and Darius Weems are two such stories.
On March 7, Miles Hilton-Barber, a 58-year-old father of three who has been blind for 25 years, took off in a microlight plane and flew 13,500 miles before touching down in Sydney on April 30. Hilton-Barber made his flight hoping to raise $2 million for Seeing Is Believing, a charity that helps combat blindness in poor and developing countries.
Hilton-Barber has also participated in “The Toughest Footrace on Earth,” a 155 mile (approximately) trek across Africa’s Sahara Desert and “The Coldest Marathon on Earth,” the Siberian Ice Marathon. Some of the Brit’s other adventures include climbing Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro, Europe’s Mount Blanc and setting a Malaysian Grand Prix lap record for a blind driver.
Darius Weems is a 17-year-old with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy whose documentary, made with friend Logan Smalley, is screening nationwide and winning awards at reputable film festivals.
During the summer of 2005, Weems, a native of Athens, GA who had never left his county, and 11 of his college-aged friends took off on a three-week, cross-country road trip. Their ultimate destination was the MTV "Pimp My Ride" studio in Los Angeles where Weems wanted the show's "Mad Mike" to trick out his wheelchair. From coast to coast, Weems and Smalley, documented the view of accessibility from a teenager's perspective. To learn more about the film, visit Darius Goes West: The Roll Of His Life.
Now those are some stories for any person with a disability, young or old, to admire.
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