Three time African Para – Cycling Champion Alem Mumuni, has impacted tremendously on the perception that persons with disabilities are not social parasites thus people who beg on the street.
Alem, at the age of two, contracted polio, for which one of the known causes is contaminated water. This has made him keen on his desire to provide families with clean water and a good education.
Alem was 10 when he started walking and at 12 started school.He started riding a bike,and after a great many falls he got the hang of it and discovered mobility and that represented a turning point in his life, and he relished the chance to learn, despite the difficult 5km walk to school each day.
“You know people in Ghana with disabilities were often treated as outcasts, Alem was not going to let this assumption get in the way of his life: “I got involved in anything that other kids could do.” he told sportscrusader.com
The former Olympian has not only represented disabled people in Ghana but has also set up Al set up the Alem Foundation after he returned from London 2012 together with Great Britain’s Alexandra Main, who had coached the Ghanaian Paralympic team to London 2012
In 2004 he moved to the capital, Accra, to further his education and joined the Ghana Society of Physically Disabled. He played basketball, volleyball and football, and was part of the Ghana National Amputee Soccer Team that qualified for the World Cup.
From A Polio Survivor To A Champion - Alem Mumuni
