Newsletter
Laurie Ann Thompson

Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah

More good news from Brooks Global and Emmanuel’s Dream

by

Sev­er­al weeks ago I wrote about a school in North Car­oli­na, Brooks Glob­al Stud­ies, which had select­ed Emmanuel’s Dream as their all-school read and then had Emmanuel come vis­it them in per­son! (If you haven’t seen it yet, please go check out the video. It’s pret­ty amazing!)
Recent­ly, I came across this addi­tion­al piece of the sto­ry, which I had­n’t been aware of… In addi­tion to the shared read­ing expe­ri­ence and the inspi­ra­tional vis­it from Emmanuel, the Brooks Glob­al Stud­ies school com­mu­ni­ty took things one step fur­ther by orga­niz­ing a char­i­ty bike dri­ve and were able to col­lect 210 donat­ed bicy­cles! The bikes will be shipped to Ghana, refur­bished by a repair shop oper­at­ed by peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, and then put up for sale there.
What an inspir­ing, reward­ing event for every­one involved. Way to go, Brooks Glob­al Stud­ies! Click here to read the full arti­cle, and be sure to scroll through the pic­ture slideshow!

H. Scott Hoffmann/Greensboro News & Record

Celebrate Inclusive Schools Week!

by


Schools across the coun­try are observ­ing Inclu­sive Schools Week this week. Accord­ing to the Inclu­sive Schools Net­work:

Inclu­sive Schools Week is an annu­al event spon­sored by the Inclu­sive Schools Net­work (ISN) and Stet­son & Asso­ciates, Inc., which is held each year dur­ing the first full week in Decem­ber. Since its incep­tion in 2001, Inclu­sive Schools Week has cel­e­brat­ed the progress that schools have made in pro­vid­ing a sup­port­ive and qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion to an increas­ing­ly diverse stu­dent pop­u­la­tion, includ­ing stu­dents who are mar­gin­al­ized due to dis­abil­i­ty, gen­der, socio-eco­nom­ic sta­tus, cul­tur­al her­itage, lan­guage pref­er­ence and oth­er fac­tors. The Week also pro­vides an impor­tant oppor­tu­ni­ty for edu­ca­tors, stu­dents and par­ents to dis­cuss what else needs to be done in order to ensure that their schools con­tin­ue to improve their abil­i­ty to suc­cess­ful­ly edu­cate all children.
This year, the Inclu­sive Schools Week’s theme focus­es on the con­cept of being a hero. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly fit­ting because the def­i­n­i­tion of a hero, a per­son not­ed for coura­geous acts of nobil­i­ty of char­ac­ter, res­onates with all of the stu­dents, par­ents, teach­ers, prin­ci­pals and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers who take coura­geous steps for­ward each day to pro­mote accep­tance for all. The path toward more inclu­sive edu­ca­tion­al ser­vices has been chal­leng­ing, yet reward­ing. This year, we will focus on the steps along this jour­ney and con­sid­er the courage it requires.

Now that’s a mis­sion I can get behind, and I think my book Emmanuel’s Dream, about one of my per­son­al heroes, fits this theme per­fect­ly! Emmanuel is not only a per­son with a dis­abil­i­ty, but he’s ded­i­cat­ed his life to cre­at­ing an inclu­sive school for stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties and with­out and his home coun­try of Ghana.
Inclu­sive Schools Net­work has more great ideas and resources for cel­e­brat­ing Inclu­sive Schools Week here.
And Savan­na Flakes has some oth­er great sug­ges­tions for all ages here on Multi­B­riefs: Exclusive.
 

Emmanuel prepares for another ride in Ghana!

by

Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah
ModernGhana.com reports “Para Cyclist Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah To Ride For Peace­ful Elec­tions In Ghana.”
Emmanuel is prepar­ing once again to cir­cle Ghana, as he did in Emmanuel’s Dream, but this time it will be a peace tour to pro­mote a peace­ful gen­er­al elec­tion. At a press con­fer­ence, he point­ed out that dis­abled peo­ple are among soci­ety’s most vul­ner­a­ble, along with chil­dren and the elder­ly, and they often have no place to go if war erupts.
The Ghana­ian elec­tion is set to take place on Decem­ber 7, 2016, so Emmanuel’s “Rid­ing For Peace 2016” event will start on Novem­ber 7, 2016, in Accra, the cap­i­tal of Ghana. He’ll ride with ten oth­er para cyclists on a route to Cape Coast and Tako­ra­di, up through Ashan­ti and the north­ern region, down through Vol­ta, and final­ly to Emmanuel’s home­town, Koforid­ua, where he will cast his own vote. By the time they are fin­ished, they will have biked to pro­mote peace through 240 dis­tricts in one month. Rid­ing for Peace 2016 is ask­ing for sup­port from com­pa­nies, orga­ni­za­tions, and all who want peace for Ghana.
Good luck, Emmanuel!

Emmanuel on US National Amputee Soccer Team

by

Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah, the sub­ject of my upcom­ing pic­ture-book biog­ra­phy, EMMANUEL’S DREAM, is an ath­lete who was born in Ghana, West Africa, with a deformed leg. As a young man, he want­ed to change the way dis­abled peo­ple were treat­ed in Ghana, so he rode a bicy­cle near­ly 400 miles all around his coun­try to prove that being dis­abled does­n’t mean being unable. Since then, he has con­tin­ued to be an advo­cate for the rights of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties and has launched his own foun­da­tion, with plans to build a school in Ghana for abled and dis­abled chil­dren alike. He now spends most of his time based in San Diego, CA, trav­el­ing the Unit­ed States as a moti­va­tion­al speak­er and rais­ing funds for his charity.
This spring, the Unit­ed States Nation­al Amputee Soc­cer Team invit­ed Emmanuel to play for them. He just returned to San Diego from a train­ing ses­sion in Mary­land, and he’ll join the team when they com­pete in the 10th Amputee World Cup in Mex­i­co in late November.
Good luck, Emmanuel, and to the rest of the play­ers on the US Nation­al Amputee Soc­cer Team!
Read more about Emmanuel and his World Cup Soc­cer expe­ri­ence here, includ­ing some great photos.

EMMANUEL’S DREAM popping up in some exciting places!

by

My upcom­ing pic­ture-book biog­ra­phy, EMMANUEL’S DREAM: THE TRUE STORY OF EMMANUEL OFOSU YEBOAH, has been pop­ping up in a few excit­ing places lately!
First, I recent­ly got to see–for the first time–how the illus­tra­tions by Sean Qualls are pro­gress­ing, and the art­work is noth­ing short of amaz­ing! I was sit­ting in a qui­et cof­fee shop work­ing on my lap­top when I got my first glimpse, and it lit­er­al­ly brought tears to my eyes, in all the best ways. I want­ed to dance around the place and scream with excite­ment! I love the bold col­or palette he’s using, the expres­sions on the char­ac­ters’ faces, and the way he chose to show parts of the sto­ry in sil­hou­et­ted back­ground images. It’s breath­tak­ing! Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I can share any of it with you just yet, but I can’t wait to be able to. I hope you like it as much as I do.
Sec­ond, the book is now list­ed on Goodreads! I hope you’ll click on this link or the but­ton below and add EMMANUEL’S DREAM to your “Want to Read” shelf.

Goodreads button for Emmanuel's Dream

Third, the book is avail­able for pre-order! If you’d like to reserve a signed copy, you may now order EMMANUEL’S DREAM from Secret Gar­den Books (please leave an extra week or so after the pub­li­ca­tion date for deliv­ery, and indi­cate how you’d like it per­son­al­ized in the “oth­er notes about your order” field). It Is also avail­able for pre-order on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Powell’s, or direct­ly from the pub­lish­er, Schwartz & Wade/Random House.
Keep an eye out for more excit­ing news!

Fantastic news–my first book sale!

by

Okay, so this post is a lit­tle late in com­ing. I’ve been care­ful­ly think­ing about relat­ed revi­sion notes as well as enjoy­ing just a lit­tle bit of bask­ing and cel­e­brat­ing (okay, a lot of bask­ing and cel­e­brat­ing!). Now that my feet are back on the ground, please allow me to share the offi­cial announcement…
I’ve sold my first book!
 

I can’t yet reveal all of the details (there’s a top-secret Awe­some Illus­tra­tor involved!), but I  can say that in my wildest dreams, I could­n’t have imag­ined any­thing bet­ter. My pic­ture-book biog­ra­phy about Emmanuel Oso­fu Yeboah (see pre­vi­ous post) will be edit­ed by the love­ly Anne Schwartz at Schwartz & Wade (Ran­dom House). Here’s a bit of a blurb about the book, cour­tesy of my amaz­ing agent, Ammi-Joan Paque­tte:

“When Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah was born, his right leg was short and twisted—completely use­less. It was 1977, and peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties in Ghana, West Africa, were con­sid­ered cursed, and left their homes only to beg for food or mon­ey. Emmanuel chal­lenged the norm from his youngest days. Then, in 2001, he decid­ed to prove that peo­ple with phys­i­cal chal­lenges could do amaz­ing things, so he bicy­cled across Ghana—almost 400 miles—with one leg. His ten-day ride helped make him a vir­tu­al celebri­ty, but also a nation­al hero. As a direct result of Emmanuel’s efforts, Ghana even­tu­al­ly enact­ed pro­gres­sive dis­abil­i­ty laws.”

Her full announce­ment is on the Erin Mur­phy Lit­er­ary Agency web­site, here.
Part of what makes this the ulti­mate dream come true for is that this is the sto­ry I could nev­er let go of. It’s the first book I ever tried to write and has been through at least 30 MAJOR rewrites, chang­ing gen­res and tar­get age groups sev­er­al times along the way, and vary­ing in length from 200 words to 1500 words and every­where in between. I’ve put it away, stud­ied and learned, pon­dered and thought, writ­ten oth­er things, and been pulled back to this one again count­less times, over and over, for almost 7 years. This project has been my own per­son­al 400-mile bike ride, one that I don’t know if I could have com­plet­ed with­out the inspi­ra­tion I’ve derived from the sto­ry itself. To have it be the first book of mine to sell AND to have it land in such a per­fect, won­der­ful home at S&W is tru­ly unbe­liev­able. But please don’t pinch me, because this is one dream I don’t want to end.

Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah on Oprah’s OWN

by

I just found this short video that Oprah recent­ly did on Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah, the sub­ject of my man­u­script ONE IS ENOUGH. I’ve been work­ing on this sto­ry, in some form, since I first heard about it in 2005, and I still find it inspir­ing. I hope you will, too.

An Update on Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah

Three years after Emmanuel’s Gift was released, Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah shares an update on how his life has changed since that time. Find out about Emmanuel’s sports acad­e­my, his pas­sion for soc­cer, his fam­i­ly and how he’s changed the lives of mil­lions of peo­ple in Ghana.

If you’d like to read more about Emmanuel and his mis­sion or find out how you can help, please vis­it his foun­da­tion’s web page here.
You can also read about him:

in this book

or this documentary.

NEWSLETTER
SIGN-UP