Rick Hansen

Rick Hansen on his tour around the world (www.tabaret.uottawa.ca)

A hero is not just a celebrity or a person who saves lives; a hero can simply be a person who likes to help others and respects them. A hero should always try to give his very best to help others.

Sometimes a hero is respected and admired because of their courage as a result of what they have done. My hero is a person who is respected because of his courage and because he is a person who likes to help. Rick Hansen is his name and apart from being my hero he is the hero of all disabled people.

Rick Hansen (www.innovationcanada.ca)

It all began at the age of 15, in Canada, when he was in a car crash and he had a spinal cord injury that paralyzed him from the waist down. From then on he had to use a wheelchair. As he was a good athlete he decided to run a wheelchair marathon and he won 19 International Wheelchair Marathons. On March 1985, Rick left from Vancouver to wheel around the world so as to collect money for his spinal cord injury. But he had another purpose for doing that; it was to prove that if you are disabled it didn’t mean you can not make your dreams come true. I think that it is a very good way because many disabled people think that they can do nothing because they are disabled. I believe that running around the world in a wheelchair is a wonderful way of reinforcing the spirit or building up somebody’s courage.

While fighting against the flu he reached his 8000 km in Paris, and at last he traveled 24,901 miles through 34 countries and 4 continents in his wheelchair. Rick Hansen from British Columbia has shown the true strength of which a human being is capable of. He is my hero because he shares messages of hope and the importance on helping others in positive ways. Rick had had a wonderful idea, he made a foundation for help others.

He made a difference in my life by giving me courage and helping me to believe in myself.