“I expect a miracle,” George anticipates.
The Paralympian is living at the capital’s National Stadium Hostels in a one-room apartment, which he shares with two other athletes also living with disabilities.
Numerous certificates recognizing his exploits in international competitions decorate the walls of his living room. Medals are carefully arranged at one end of the wall while an enlarged photo of him and Sierra Leone’s president, Julius Maada Bio, hangs up at the other end.
The athlete boasts 17 medals, including the two bronze and one silver that he bagged at his first outing at the African Championship and Egypt Open in 2011.
Although not as celebrated as the country’s soccer players, in sheer number of medals, George is believed to be Sierra Leone’s best achiever in sports.
Born in 1990, a year before a bloody civil war started in Sierra Leone, George contracted polio before his sixth birthday.
To escape the war, his family fled Kenema in eastern Sierra Leone for the capital city where he was enrolled at the Freetown Cheshire Home, which supports persons living with disabilities.
It was a head-start that young George desperately needed. He was given a wheelchair before he started competing in track and field, handball, and other games. Realizing how good he was in these sports, he was determined to succeed.
“The small boy was going to school at the Government Model Secondary School when we spotted his talent,” says his coach Mr. Taylor, explaining George’s athletic journey.
George was fortunate to be in school, given that school attendance for children with disabilities in Sierra Leone is lower—by seven per cent for boys and 10 per cent for girls—than for those without disabilities. According to government statistics, 46.5 per cent of people with disabilities had never been to school and 63.9 per cent are illiterate.
Mr. Taylor encouraged George to participate in the 800 metres wheelchair inter-secondary school sports competition and later in the annual Boxing Day championship.
Post-secondary school, George trained for 10 years without any opportunities coming his way until the Africa Championship and Egypt Open came in 2011, where he competed and won laurels in the table tennis men’s singles and doubles.
After Egypt, he represented Sierra Leone in the Jordan Open, winning two medals. Because of his performance, he was a wild card, joining the African team for the World Championships in China in 2015. Unfortunately, he could not travel to China due to the Ebola outbreak that had hit Sierra Leone at the time.
George is a strong advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities in his country. “I am into advocacy for them. I also mentor and bring them into sporting activities, and discourage them from street begging,” he says.
